One Flew East, One Flew West

I.

When Killua was twelve, he ran away from home. His family had been on a business trip to Kyoto, and for the first time his elder brother Illumi had accompanied their father, Silva, into the board room to observe business proceedings instead of keeping an eye on his younger siblings. Alluka and Kalluto had stayed with their mother as the woman visited her family shrine, the three decked out in long kimonos Killua would’ve hated to wear, leaving him alone with Milluki and their guard.

He hadn’t even needed to distract Milluki. The older boy’s pimply face had been jammed into a manga at the time, leering at the drawn figures of supple young girls. Moron. And their personal guard were glorified babysitters. One nasty demand for sweets had one of them storming off for a smoke as the other fetched something from across the street. All Killua had to do was go out the window, slide down a drainpipe and he was home free.

At least that was the idea, but the police took him in quickly enough. His white hair and blue eyes stood out amongst the Japanese crowds that surrounded him. Illumi came to fetch him, thanking the police for their hard work with deep bows and a smile that creased his whole face. The image burned into Killua’s memory that day, the black, fathomless eyes of an emotionless jailor peering out from a smiling face. He never saw Illumi smile after that, and neither did he want to.

His punishment was brutal, though it left no visible scars. The poisoned food wasn’t new, his mother had the twisted sense that it would boost their immune system somehow, but the electrocution was.

His mother would sit in sometimes, control the dials herself, reassuring Killua softly as he screamed and cried, jerking uncontrollably. She’d hold him afterwards, stroke his hair and cry loudly about being forced to turn her hands against her precious son. The words pierced any bubble of trust he may have had for her, any sweet memory of her singing to him as a baby.

She was as much a monster to him as Illumi.

Milluki didn’t try to hide his true face from Killua at least. He was vicious when it was his turn to punish the middle brother, spitting in Killua's face that this was payback for the punishment Milluki had had to endure for letting Killua slip away. Milluki was a petty child- at least Killua could understand that.

Alluka wasn’t allowed to see him unsupervised after that, either. He wasn’t sure why, but then again who knew what tearful confessions had been ripped from him while he was deliriously sick, vomiting on the tile floor and shaking, his stomach empty and his muscles trembling from aftershocks? Alluka was certainly the only balm in his life, and he wouldn’t be surprised to discover he had sobbed her name.

When Killua was fifteen, they put a knife in his hands and told him to punish the man before him. He snarled and spat on Killua’s shoes, unleashing a crass avalanche of insults on the white-haired teen. The stranger gnashed his teeth at the stone-faced men holding him in place, hurling threats. Illumi’s hand was cold on Killua’s shoulder, inordinately heavy. The first cut was the hardest. The last was a mercy.

When Killua was seventeen, he ran away from home again. In an attempt to avoid his previous mistake, he went directly to a police station. “My parents are abusing me,” he said. “I need protection.”

“Can you prove that?”

When Killua was seventeen, he told the truth about his family. About how their international business was a front for a long, shady dynasty. About the horrors inflicted on him by his mother and his older siblings as his father watched distantly. About the men he himself had been sent after to terrify into acquiescence, about their long tendrils sinking into Japanese and American soil alike as the Zoldycks coiled themselves with the Yakuza branch his mother had been born into, about the delicate, sweet sibling that had refused to become like that and had been locked away to punish him into behaving, begging for her rescue.

When Killua was seventeen, he sat in a nearly-empty courtroom as his mother sobbed and his father sat on a witness bench, soberly and regretfully telling the judge about their attempts to curb Killua’s wild and twisted imagination, about the family doctors they had called in since he hit puberty, about the violent and erratic behavior they had hidden to avoid a blight on their public image. To protect him, Silva had said, shaking his head, as if they had done everything possible to shield Killua from his own sick mind.

They only regretted that they had failed their beloved son so thoroughly that he felt afraid of them.

When Killua was seventeen, he was declared incompetent by a judge, diagnosed schizophrenic by a psychiatrist with cloudy glasses, and sent to live in a sanitarium in the middle of a desert, an oasis with a vast stretch of empty, unsurvivable land around it, likely for the rest of his days. He became a tragic story that softened his family in the eyes of American consumers, gave them the appearance of mourning, loving parents to an ill child and not the predators he knew them to be. When Killua was seventeen, his life ended.

At least, that was what he thought, but life had a funny way of twisting things around when least expected.

ii.

Gon spent his eighteenth birthday sitting next to Aunt Mito, staring at the clouds out the window. The flight was long and silent between them. They held hands the entire ride, even as she slept. Gon wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of the flight or of letting him go. He had thought that getting her to board would be nearly impossible, but she was so hurt by the idea of saying goodbye to him at the airport instead of going with him all the way to his final destination that it pushed her onto the plane without a single reassuring word from him.

Guilt was a fuzzy feeling in his chest, indistinct and formless but a heavy shape nevertheless. She wore black, still, though he knew she hadn’t been that close to Kite, and she’d made it clear to Gon that she’d rather he stay in their little village with her, but after he’d come out of a recent blackout to see her bleeding from a gash across her arm he’d refused to stay any longer.

Mito told him over and over that it wasn’t his fault Kite had died. He thought, sometimes, distantly, that in a way she was right, but in its essence it didn’t feel true. And how could she know? She hadn’t been there when Gon crashed the car. She hadn’t been there when he’d woken, the sound of sirens distorting into ghastly screams as he blinked blood out of his eyes to a severed arm lying feet away from him on the pavement, shards of glass littering exposed flesh, long enough for the memory to sear in place before 0
He never remembered how the crash itself had occurred, a daunting presence in the back of his mind that never seemed to go away, even when he did his best to seem cheery and bright around his aunt. He had always been such a happy child, he recalled hearing her sobbing to his great-grandmother over the phone as he pretended to sleep in their airport-side hotel room the night before their international flight. He just needed to learn how to cope.

Learning how to cope might have been easier without the brain damage. Still.

The Desert Bloom Recovery Center was apparently the best money and influence could get in their field. Yes, it was in America, but Mito had started to teach him English the moment he, at the age of twelve, declared that he had every intention of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a naturalist when he got older. A photographer, maybe. Or a zoologist! Besides, his well-connected (if absent) father had offered to pay for the program, possibly because he felt guilty for not coming to Kite’s funeral, and Mito had been hard-pressed to refuse, having nothing to offer Gon but a humble home in a fishing village on an island too small to contain him.

They separated just outside; Mito drew him in a long, hard hug, crying silently into his shoulder. He whispered a promise to write if he could, stroking her back. It was so strange to be taller than her now. She had never seemed frail until recently, but now that he had noticed it, it was hard to forget it.

Maybe this would be the best thing for her, too. That was the thought that propelled him inside, more than anything.

iii.

Life at Desert Bloom was… strange. Whatever they were giving Killua to help with the schizophrenia he definitely didn’t have, it made him feel tired and unfocused. Hazy. The people in here with him felt like ghosts, distantly connected in a way that felt entirely unemotional. He’d never been particularly good at connecting with other human beings, and he certainly wasn’t going to improve that particular skill here, not with all these… people.

Kurapika was fine, he supposed. The blond was the closest to Killua’s age. After him, the next youngest patient was probably twice as old as Killua. But Kurapika was often wrapped up in his books, or in meditation or whatever the hell he was working on now. Kurapika was lucky- he wasn’t on whatever Killua was on. He could read a book without the words starting to blur, without having to read the same page three times because his attention just couldn’t settle.

Desert Bloom was a prison, but a well-stocked prison. He had video games, at least. In some ways it wasn’t that different from being at home. Oh, except for the lack of doors once inside the common area, that was certainly annoying.

Still, the patients here had far more free reign than he had initially expected, so aside from the no-internet and no-leaving thing it wasn’t that bad. The medication sucked, and so did the mandated therapy sessions, but Killua was just biding his time until he could leave anyway. He had a plan.

The plan involved slowly working over Leorio, who was as soft-hearted as he was perverted, and more easily tricked than both. It was a wonder to Killua that Dr. Paladiknight, so called, a junior therapist, had been allowed to practice at all. He did seem genuinely interested in helping his patients, but Killua wasn’t sure how helpful he could be when he was so easily duped.

He believed, for example, that Killua really was schizophrenic, just like his parents had said. Moron.

Killua rolled his eyes at the thought, crunching into a strawberry-flavored hard candy. He shoved his hands into his pockets as he wandered through the rectangular, open-plan building, a low-ceilinged single-story surrounded by out-of-place palm trees.

Killua pushed his way through a set of double doors- the only set in the building- into the greeting hall, on his way outside. He’d been here almost three months now, and they’d long stopped bothering to try and keep him indoors. Where would he go? There was nothing but desert out there, and nowhere to hide from their drone cameras if he should be gone too long. Even if he escaped them, once he hit civilization, it would just be the same old thing. Illumi would find him, and he’d be right back where he started.

It was all pointless. Living, breathing, dying, whatever. Pointless.

All he’d wanted was to get out from under the Zoldyck thumb, and now he was a prisoner for life, one whose words were discarded as hallucinations and lies. A prison was a prison, no matter how nice it looked.

Killua was stalled before he could walk out the front doors by an unfamiliar sight. A tall, broad-shouldered young man stood at the front desk, one hand shoved into the back pocket of his jeans. Wiry black hair stood in jagged spikes, probably the style Illumi’s boyfriend was usually going for with that forever-dyed hair of his. But what drew Killua’s attention wasn’t the stranger’s young age, nor his boyish smile.

No, there was something familiar about the shape of his words.

He stilled, his crystalline blue eyes narrowed on the young man. Killua almost blended into the wall. His pale skin and hair and white shirt certainly helped, barely distinguishable from the eggshell paint, but it was something in the way he held himself.

The stranger finished his conversation with the front desk attendant, taking a green backpack off the desk and slinging it over one shoulder as he stepped back. He laughed awkwardly at something she said, scratching his cheek. She gestured at the doors leading further into the building and said something Killua didn’t catch. The stranger bowed to her as he thanked her, a half-aborted movement with his hands straight at his side, and realization crashed into Killua.

It was the accent. The boy was Japanese.

Smirking, Killua shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. He leaned against the wall, kicking one of his feet up, looking cool and relaxed before calling out to the stranger. “Nihonjin desu ka?”

The head of dark hair whipped around, and Killua got his first glance of amber eyes. They were wide and bright in a strong-featured face, friendly and open. And surprised, definitely surprised, except that it was Killua who was really facing the surprise because-

Killua was gay. He was perfectly aware of this personal feature, even if he usually ignored it. Physical attraction and romantic attraction were two very different things, and he wasn’t that big on having people touch him in the first place, so it was easy to avoid this particular part of him.

However, he also couldn’t deny that there was something immediately magnetic about this new mystery person standing in front of him- nope, coming closer, coming real close now.

The boy was in his space in ten seconds, standing closer to Killua than his own siblings would, a smile lighting up his whole face. “You speak Japanese?” He giggled, clearly excited by this surprise.

Killua shrugged casually, his smirk locked in place even as he felt an uncomfortable heat catch in his gut. This young man was very brazen. He clearly lacked personal space, an unusual trait for a Japanese person as far as Killua was concerned. And he also looked very young. “My mother’s Japanese.”

“Really?” The stranger grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Cool! I wouldn’t have guessed!”

“Yeah, who would’ve,” Killua snorted. His pale hair and blue eyes were probably a large part of why Silva had been so obsessed with Killua taking over the family business, despite Illumi’s clear proficiency. “What brings you here?”

“My dad’s in the US,” the boy laughed awkwardly, “I’m Gon! Yoroshiku, ne?”

“Killua,” he replied, shuffling his feet, leaning a little harder into the wall.

“Killua! There you are.”

Both of the teenagers’ heads turned to the new voice. Leorio stomped closer to them, pushing round-rimmed glasses up his nose, an irritated wrinkle between his brows. He was thin and tall, and he moved in a way that reminded Killua of those inflatable stickmen flapping around the outside of car dealerships- legs everywhere, arms flailing bonelessly.

“Ah, Leorio,” Killua uttered smoothly, unconcerned, very much keen to show off for their new prisoner, “to what do I owe this visit.”

“Take your medication,” Leorio yelled, shoving a crinkled paper cup at Killua. Several pills rattled inside. “And that’s Dr. Paladiknight to you!”

His gaze flicked disdainfully to the cup, and his gaze was flat when he met Leorio’s eyes again. “I don’t need them. I’m not sick.”

“Yes you are!” Leorio shouted, shaking the cup in Killua’s face. “Take your meds!”

“No I’m not! There’s nothing wrong with me!”

“There’s definitely something wrong with you!” Leorio shouted back, anger starting to stain his cheeks.

“Yeah, I have you as a doctor!”

“I’m a great doctor!”

“No, you’re an idiot who believes whatever he’s told. Go annoy Kurapika!”

“Just because I’m the youngest doctor here, it doesn’t mean you can treat me however you want!”

There was a short pause, wherein Killua’s irritated expression shifted into a sly smirk. Leorio reared back, his eyes narrowed- he knew what was coming. “Oh, are you the youngest?” Killua grinned toothily. “I guess if everyone’s a geezer, you can be a younger geezer by comparison.”

“I’M IN MY TWENTIES YOU BRAT!”

Killua rocked back on his heels, totally unconcerned. “Calling a patient a brat in front of a new person, huh? What a great doctor you are.”

Leorio went absolutely still. His brown eyes shifted from Killua to Gon, noticing him for apparently the first time. His lips pulled back into something halfway between a grin and a panicked grimace, his eyes comically wide.

Before Leorio could say anything, Dr Yorkshire stepped through the double doors. Her green eyes were fixed on the clipboard in her hands. She sidestepped Leorio without glancing up, sweeping dyed green hair out of her face, and flicked to a second page before raising her head. Her gaze flicked to Killua for a moment, her mouth tightening into an annoyed line.

“Leorio, please escort Killua back inside.”

Leorio obediently took hold of Killua’s sleeve. Cheadle Yorkshire’s expression softened into a reassuring smile as she turned her attention to Gon. “Mr. Freecss?”

“That’s me!” Gon smiled, hiking his backpack up his shoulder.

Killua threw the pair a final glance before Leorio pulled him back into the clinic’s main body.

“Maybe now you’ll be able to harass people your own age instead of annoying me all the time,” Leorio complained, dragging Killua farther and farther into the building, though the common space and into a library room. Kurapika, a grey-eyed blond with a permanently exhausted disposition, glanced at them over the rim of his book. His gaze flicked between the pair, reserved, before he quietly closed his book and set it down on the table, resting a delicate hand on the binding.

“Good morning, Killua,” he greeted softly. A very small smile curved the left corner of his mouth, his eyes a little warmer. “Causing trouble already?”

“It’s not my fault Leorio can’t keep control of anything,” Killua shrugged with a shit-eating grin.

“It’s Dr. Paladiknight!” Leorio shouted. Outside, heads turned towards them. An older nurse rolled her eyes, deliberately walking away. Leorio huffed, dropping heavily into a seat across from Kurapika, crossing his arms.

Killua dropped into another chair, leaning back into it and propping his feet up on the table. Kurapika glanced askance at his white and purple sneakers, his lips thinning. Killua snorted, but his feet returned to the ground. He had more faith in Kurapika than Leorio. Leorio had about as much self-control as some of the patients here, and not even the well-adjusted ones. Kurapika on the other hand… he wasn’t totally sure why Kurapika was here at all. He knew the blond had voluntarily committed himself, but he didn’t know why.

It wasn’t exactly a subject anyone here liked to touch on, and Kurapika’s mandated therapy was one-on-one, unlike half of Killua’s sessions. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, as far as Killua could tell.

He wondered what was wrong with the new kid. Gon. He’d seemed well-adjusted, if a little lacking in personal space. Friendly. Not at all nervous about suddenly finding himself alone with a bunch of doctors and mental patients, as if he was checking in to a hotel.

“So what’s this Gon kid in for, anyway?”

“‘In for’?” Kurapika repeated quietly, a wrinkle in his brow, mystified.

“Don’t talk like this is a prison,” Leorio sulked. He sank a little further into his seat, his eyes hanging on Kurapika’s movements as the blond picked his book back up. Killua rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t be surprised if Leorio got disbarred or whatever, because he clearly had some inappropriate feelings for his patients. Not to mention inappropriate behaviors.

Killua snorted to himself, plucking another hard candy out of his pocket and unwrapping it, popping it into his mouth. “Isn’t it one?”

“Almost everyone is here voluntarily.”

“I’m not.”

Leorio sighed. Kurapika flicked to the next page. “You’re sick.”

“I’m not!” Killua yelled, slamming his hand down on the table. “I told the truth and my parents lied!”

Leorio and Kurapika’s eyes both turned to him. Leorio’s soft sadness didn’t affect Killua- the man, again, was an idiot as far as Killua was concerned, and his opinion was therefore worth very little. But Kurapika’s careful gaze- preparing himself for an action of some kind- mingled with pity, burned ire through him.

“Fuck you both,” Killua hissed, standing up abruptly and shoving his chair into the table. He stomped out; the other patients cleared a path for the stormy teen to the nurse’s station. “I want to use the game room.”

The old nurse from before, a tall, muscular pink-eyed woman, hardly looked up from her magazine at the request, flicking open a drawer beside her and pulling out a key ring attached to a plushie cactus. Killua pulled a face at the muscular speedo-wearing hunk on the front cover, irritatedly tampering down on the heated blush it rose to his face.

Damnit why was Bisky always reading porn in here? Did the families of the people stuck in here realize what they were paying out the nose for? Uncaring nurses reading porn, young doctors who were just as problematic as their patients…

Killua’s parents wouldn’t care, but then again they weren’t exactly hoping for him to heal in any way, either. But surely that couldn’t be the case for everyone else in here? They were mostly addicts looking for recovery-- or PR, at least. Some of them were famous, apparently. Movie stars, singers, whatever. He didn’t care in the slightest. He didn’t recognize a single one. They were as important to him as glaciers drifting in the water.

He followed her to the game room. She unlocked the video game cabinet directly without asking Killua what particular sort of game he was interested in. Fair enough; he wasn’t about to play shoots and ladders.

The games they did have weren’t necessarily his favorites. The staff tried to avoid anything that was too gory or violent, or that might trigger someone, but cartoon violence and racing games were still loads more interesting than coloring mandalas or whatever the fuck was going on in the main room right now.

Bisky let him pick a game, plucking it from the cabinet and relocking it before opening the plastic compartment that held the consoles and television. She inserted the game, flicked everything on, relocked the container, and handed Killua a controller. He dropped into an electric blue beanbag chair almost immediately, ensconcing himself, and started up the game.

Minecraft was getting really boring. He’d already built an entire lair inside of a mountain, complete with various portals, and a matching Mirror Lair or whatever in the ether land. But hey, at least he got to kill zombies and things, so that was better than Animal Crossing.

He wondered how long Gon’s initial checkin and tour would take. He didn’t remember his much, having been drugged more or less out of his mind at the time, only waking up in a small, white bedroom. And as the most recent new patient until now, he didn’t have anyone else’s experience to go off of.

Hopefully he’d be free soon, because Killua was bored. And Gon seemed- different.

Interesting.

People weren’t usually fans of Killua, initially. Though he supposed the Japanese was cheating a little.

It felt good to speak it, too. It was Alluka’s favorite language to communicate with, whenever the two had been together, despite his mother’s strident desire that they blend in better with American people in public, and there was just something… primal about it. For him. Comforting.

He glanced at the double doors, a sliver of them visible from where he sat, crunching into his candy.

iv.

Gon’s meeting with Ms Cheadle was an interesting one. They sat in silence in her office as she carefully reread his file. His backpack sat between his feet, and he leaned back in the padded chair, his eyes flicking over the walls. Her desk was a beautiful and gleaming mahogany, a cluster of half-empty coffee cups taking up the space next to her elbow. A single plant hung by the window, its leaves limply spilling from the pot. It clearly needed to be watered more frequently.

She set her clipboard face-down once she was done, folding her hands together on the desk as she faced him directly. “Mr. Freeccs,” she began, her voice clipped and emotionless, “I welcome you to Desert Bloom. My name is Dr. Cheadle Yorkshire, I am the head administrator here. I understand that you’ve had limited contact with your father, is that right?”

Confusion creased Gon’s brow. He leaned further back into his chair. It bounced a little, its spring squeaking. “Never met him.”

“And yet he is sponsoring you for recovery?”

Gon shrugged. “I guess. From what I’ve heard, that’s not unusual behavior for him.”

“Hm.” Cheadle’s mouth thinned into a line, and she flicked a length of hair behind her shoulder. “I suppose not.”

Gon blinked incredulously at her for several beats, off-kilter. He scratched his cheek. “Why, have you met him?”

Something shifted in her gaze, but it was difficult for Gon to pinpoint what exactly it was. “Yes.” Her rigid demeanor could hide all sorts of secrets. Whatever it was, though, it was obvious she wasn’t fond of Ging.

“Are you going to elaborate, or…?” Gon asked, the awkward tension making him crack into a disbelieving smile.

“Your father had a hand in founding Desert Bloom with Dr Pariston,” she added coolly, her fingers flexing against each other in a matter that would’ve been unperceivable, or at least unremarkable, to most. Gon excelled at reading people, though. Not a good relationship, then. “I was part of the therapy staff at the time.”

Still, it was more relationship than Gon had with the man. He wasn’t that worried. “Sorry, what’s this got to do with-”

“Don’t concern yourself,” she cut him off, waving her hand. She smiled in a way that he was sure was meant to be reassuring but seemed merely clinical to him.

He had a feeling they weren’t going to get along all that well.

“Awake hours are 8am to 9pm. Patients are allowed free reign of the common areas, provided they are not scheduled for a therapy session. Your sessions will be one-on-one at first, and we will then adjust according to what we find will fit your needs. If you desire to go outside, you may request it from the nurse’s station. You will be allowed provided someone is available to escort you. There are several walking trails, but due to the high temperatures we ask that you don’t stay out too long.” Gon nodded along, his amber eyes fixed on the green-haired doctor.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but these rules seemed rather lax- more a resort than anything. Maybe there was a catch. Or maybe Mito had been right when she’d referred to it as a rich person’s go-away camp.

...Mito hadn’t known Gon was listening at the time, of course. She’d been on the phone with his great grandmother Abe, thinking that he was asleep in the next bed while she lay in the dark of their hotel room.

“Meals are three times a day, they are taken in the cafeteria where all food must remain.” The Japanese-speaking boy he’d seen at the entrance, though- hadn’t he been eating? Bemused, Gon resorted to his patented smile. It always put people at ease, and it usually made him feel better too.

“No problem.”

“Dr Paladiknight specializes in grief counselling, so he’ll be your therapist for now. That may change, of course.”

Gon nodded again.

“He’s still in training, so I will be observing your sessions from a monitor at first. I’ll step in if needed, or reassign you.”

“Okay,” he smiled, his head bouncing in a nod. He dug his fingernails into his thumb a little, just enough to feel a bite of pain. There was something he didn’t like about her words. Perhaps it was that she was putting the skills of another doctor down before a brand new patient. Trying to engender trust by debasing another? Or merely honesty?

“For patient safety, all doors in the dormitory area are to remain open during waking hours.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have any questions for me?”

Asking about her relationship with Ging seemed like it would be entertaining, but he was ready to get out of this office already. His first impression of Cheadle was- not favorable. She was probably exceedingly good at her job, but whether she cared about her patients was another matter. She struck Gon as someone who thought of the patients as subjects rather than people who needed help.

Maybe it was useful for a doctor. Gon didn’t find it useful for someone who was meant to be a confidant. “No,” he instead answered with a reassuring grin, pushing himself up and grabbing his backpack. “I think I’m all good.”

“Then I will transfer you into Gehl’s able hands. She will show you your room, go over your schedule, and afterwards you may feel free to join the rest of the patients in the common area.”

“Thanks,” he nodded, slinging on his pack. Frankly, there wasn’t much in it except clothes and a photograph of Mito. He’d never… had much, really. Never needed it.

A tall, dark-haired woman met him outside. Despite wearing the same labcoat as Dr Yorkshire, something about her seemed much… slinkier? Maybe it was the way she walked, but it seemed to him she probably belonged on a stage or singing in a smokey club rather than in a psychiatric facility.

Like Cheadle, she seemed surprisingly uninterested in her patients, greeting him with a cool glance and an unblinking eye. “Mr Freecs,” she muttered, drawing out the last syllable of his name, an edge of distaste in it. Perhaps she, too, knew his father. Her tongue flicked against the point of her cupid’s bow as she glanced past him to Cheadle. “Welcome. Please follow me.”

They moved along a brightly-lit corridor. It was lined with open doors on the right and large windows on the left, overlooking the common area. It looked comfortable, filled with plush seats and heavy-looking tables. There were maybe two dozen people milling about, all in matching soft-wool slippers that were the same pink-coral as the Desert Bloom sign outside.

Gehl stopped abruptly, and Gon was almost slapped in the arm by her long ponytail when her head twisted to the side. “This is you,” she stated, pointing into one of the rooms. He stepped inside to find a single, squat dresser with three drawers and a bed larger than the one he had at home. He sat on the mattress and discovered that it was softer, too, a little saggier than he liked, bedsprings whining as his weight sunk down on them. A pair of coral slippers sat on his pillow in plastic wrap. “You may keep your boots under your bed and use them to go outside, but we can also provide you a pair of velcro closure shoes if you prefer.”

“This is fine, thanks.”

Gehl nodded. “Once you’ve put your things away, please join everyone in the common area.”

“Sure, no problem.”

She flashed him a smile that entirely lacked warmth. “Welcome again to Desert Bloom, Mr Freecs. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

She walked away, heels clicking against tile. He shook his head, slipping his bag off and letting it rest on the mattress. When she said it like that, it sounded as if they were merely in a hotel with strange rules. It made him feel… ill at ease.

Gon craned his head to look past the windows into the common area. He couldn’t see that white-haired boy from here. Maybe he was outside…

Gon pulled his backpack into his lap, emptying it of its contents. He’d go find him when he was done.

v.

Killua was engrossed in his game when someone sat beside him. He immediately leapt to his feet, putting distance between him and the unknown in a single move, his controller brandished between them.

Oh. It was the new kid. Embarrassed, Killua pressed the pause button, staring at the ceiling for a moment before slowly sitting back down. Gon smiled uncertainly at him from his seat on the floor, an elbow leaning on the edge of Killua’s beanbag chair. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“You move quietly,” Killua ground out, attempting to make it sound like a compliment- it was an admirable skill, after all- and not an irritation. He tugged uncomfortably on his shirt sleeves, wiggling a little to make the microbeads settle more comfortably.

“It’s hard to catch animals when you don’t,” Gon grinned, as if that didn’t just open up Killua to a whole host of new questions. “What are you playing?”

“Minecraft,” he snorted. “It’s a time-waster, but I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“There’s an arcade on the island I grew up on, but I never really got good at anything.”

‘The island I grew up on?’ Seriously? The kid had seemed pretty normal, pretty well-adjusted to Killua, but that sounded like some rich kid bullshit after all. Not that Killua could speak against that, having grown up on the grounds of an entire mountain and its surrounding forest. Besides, if he was really as well-adjusted as he seemed, why would he be here?

Those were questions he had plenty of time to get answered. He wasn’t exactly going anywhere anytime soon, and for now, well.

Killua did quite like to have interesting people fawn over him. He tilted his head to glance at Gon out of the corner of his eye, tracking his expression. The boy leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the screen. A small, sly smirk curved Killua’s thin lips.

“Here, let me show you what I’ve made.”

vi.

Gon woke on his second day at the first rays of light entering his east-facing windows, shifting away from a band that cut across his eyes. He rolled out of bed without waiting, tugging on a cotton t-shirt and green basketball shorts that came to his knees, before attempting to leave his room. The door was locked.

He sighed. Not yet 8am, he supposed. He peered through the thin window in his bedroom door into the hallway. The common area on the other side was dark, without movement, but something caught his eye from the left, a flash of white. He blinked at it, knocking on the door. A head whirled around, wide blue eyes fixing on him immediately.

At first, Killua’s expression was of muted surprise. In moments, it shifted into a smug smirk, and he sauntered closer. “Ohayo.”

“Hi,” Gon grinned, flattening his palm on the glass. “How did you get out?”

“Magic,” Killua smirked, crossing his arms and leaning on the far side of the hallway so that Gon got a fairly good look at him.

“I don’t suppose it’s a trick you can do twice?” Gon asked with a casual grin.

“Ah,” Killua answered grandly, “perhaps I can!” He flicked his hand up and Gon saw a flash of wire between his fingers, kinked in three places. A paperclip, maybe?

Killua slid closer. Gon could hear the wire jiggling inside the lock. Within a minute, Killua unlocked the door, letting it open a crack before stepping back. Gon pushed it open the rest of the way. “You’re up early.”

“I’m not much for sleeping,” Killua shrugged, disappearing the wire back into his pockets, leaving his hands there. He made a cool pose like that, relaxed, his shoulders sagging and his chin inched up, smirk in place. Lockpicking was an interesting skill, wasn’t it? “What about you?”

“The sun’s up,” Gon laughed, as if that answer made sense in the modern world.

A perplexed wrinkle appeared between Killua’s brows, and he snorted softly. “Sure. Bored in there?”

“I usually work out first thing…” he started, scratching at his unruly spikes.

“And there’s not enough space in your room,” Killua finished for him with an understanding nod, his gaze shifting across Gon’s broad shoulders and down to his muscular calves. He inclined his head to the side. “Come with me.”

“We won’t get in trouble?”

“As long as we’re back in our rooms before the first nurse shows up, we’ll be fine.”

Gon hesitated, an awkward smile pulling strangely at his mouth. “There’s really no supervision at night? What if something happens?”

“Oh, there’s cameras,” Killua replied airily, waving it off, “but honestly I don’t think anybody gives a fuck. Maybe Leorio.” He shrugged. “But as long as the other patients don’t find out it’s whatever.” He turned towards Gon, looking at him dead on with a proud smirk. “They’ve probably given up on trying to control me.” He turned again, his hands buried deep in his pockets as he led Gon down the corridor. He peered into one window- when Gon looked he couldn’t see anyone in particular, just a long slant of light illuminating a lump under the covers- before exiting out the end into the common space. “Come on I’ll show you where they do yoga.”

“There’s an exercise room?” Gon perked up.

But Killua snorted, shaking his head gently, glancing at Gon over his shoulder. His eyes looked somehow brighter in the low light, as if glowing. “You wish. It’s just mats and exercise balls. Nothing that weighs anything. But space is space.”

Gon had a feeling he was going to like Killua very much. And it didn’t hurt that they were probably about the same age. Growing up on the island, most of the population had been middle-aged to elderly, their kids leaving for big cities, different lives. Gon had never really had a friend his own age, spending most of his time with wildlife. So, this wasn’t bad at all.

It might even be fun.

Vii.

Lunch looked extremely unappetizing. Killua pulled a face as he scooped up yellow-white soup, his nose wrinkling as a yellow kernel of corn floated to the top. He glanced up when a tray dropped in front of him, quickly followed by the delicate shape of one Kurapika Kurta.

“It’s just soup, it’s not poisonous,” Kurapika told him dryly, pushing a lock of blond hair behind his ear when it tried to spill into his bowl.

“I’d rather eat poison,” Killua spat back. Despite his often exaggerated speech, he was honest. He really would rather eat poison. It just depended on the kind.

Kurapika glanced at him once before flicking open his book. Killua frowned at the cover.

“New book?”

“Hm.”

Killua leaned his pointed chin into his palm, drumming his fingers against the flesh of his cheek. “Did Leorio get it for you?” he asked with a snort and a slow blink, unimpressed.

Kurapika’s grey eyes flashed up to him once before returning to the page. “I see you’ve found a new companion,” he injected instead. Killua dropped his spoon into his soup and leaned back into his chair far enough that the front legs came off the ground.

“Yeah, so what?” He landed back down with a loud thud that drew a glance from one of the attendants, but they merely rolled their eyes and turned away. “Everyone else is boring, and you ignore me all the time anyway.”

“Maybe if you did something besides try to cause trouble,” Kurapika shot back, just as dry and cool as before, turning his page with his thumb in a way that belied far too much experience double-tasking reading and eating.

Killua heard the unstated ‘for Leorio’ loud and clear. “Maybe I wouldn’t cause so much trouble if I wasn’t so bored all the time.” If he had any sort of attention span at all. It wasn’t his fault he had nothing better to do than to needle everyone around him.

Gon appeared at his elbow, cheerfully slamming down his tray next to Killua, beaming at Kurapika. “Hi! I’m Gon!”

The blond glanced up. He met Gon’s eye before sweeping his body once- Killua took offense immediately, his eyes narrowing and his pulse rising, though he knew intellectually that the reaction made little sense. He smiled politely, a small shift of lips that hardly budged his cheeks and certainly didn’t reach his grey eyes. “Kurapika. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Gon sat, leaning his elbows on the table, looking around them at the gathered people. “I guess we’re the only young ones here, huh?” He asked, a little bemused.

Killua shrugged. “Most people my age are in junior facilities.”

Gon’s head craned around, his amber eyes fixed on Killua. “You’re not 18?”

Killua looked up towards the ceiling to avoid his gaze, rubbing his nose with his finger. “Not yet. Soon.”

“How soon?”

“I dunno.” He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully before glancing at Gon. “What day is it?”

“May 6th,” Kurapika answered immediately without looking up.

“Just about two more months, then,” Killua mused softly.

Gon’s gaze didn’t leave Killua. He glanced sideways at the Japanese boy, a nervous tension stilling the muscles in his chest, leaving his breathing weak and shallow. It felt a little like a mouse, aware that an owl was watching it, hoping to escape detection. Only he wasn’t sure, exactly, what he feared Gon detecting, or why he should be concerned. Only that he didn’t like the feeling of being revealed.

Showing off skills was one thing, but.

He wasn’t schizophrenic. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything wrong with him, either. Just… Nothing he thought this place could fix. Nothing Gon could fix. Certainly nothing he wanted exposed.

Gon’s gaze moved away from him, and he sagged into his chair, letting his head roll back so that he stared at the ceiling.

A tray slammed down on the table. His eyes shut briefly, his mouth pressing together. Only one person was simultaneously that brazen and that loud. Leorio loomed forward like a vulture, all teeth as he grinned at Gon. “Hi! I’m Dr. Paladiknight. We’ll be having our sessions together, but you’ll also see me in the wild like this a lot.” He gestured around the room. ‘In the wild’? Killua resisted a snort but only just, agitating his soup. “I thought it was time we met officially! Sorry it was so weird in the lobby yesterday!”

“That’s okay,” Gon chirped brightly, answering Leorio’s grin with a friendly smile of his own. Killua glanced askance at Gon, leaning his chin into his flat palm, his fingers curving over his mouth to hide the thin line it drew. Kurapika’s grey eyes flicked to him over the rim of his book, but the blond didn’t say anything. “Is the food always this bad?” Gon asked cheerfully, his amber eyes sparkling when he glanced sideways at Killua. Killua looked away, red-cheeked.

“Worse,” Leorio answered loudly, still grinning, his eyes half-moons behind his round glasses. Killua sighed. Gon liked Leorio, it seemed. Just what he needed.

Viii.

The rest of Gon’s second day passed at a reasonable rate. Most of his mental capacity was taken up trying to learn the names of everyone on the ward, an effort he devoted great energy and vivacity to. Killua had begun to hold back early on after lunch, watching with disbelief slowly turning to disinterest as the day continued. By the time Gon had met the last resident of Desert Bloom, Killua had abandoned him completely and returned to his video games.

When Gon crossed the empty doorway into the carpeted space, Killua eyes flicked to him, but they returned unerringly to the screen in front of him. He was playing a different game now, another that Gon of course didn’t recognize. He wasn’t sure whether Killua was absorbed by it or not, but he clearly didn’t intend to engage him in conversation this time. Killua’s jaw set as Gon came closer, and it made the young man hesitate. “What are you playing now?” He asked quietly, an over-efforted hint of brittle brightness. He didn’t understand the sudden turn-off from the white-haired boy.

“Sims.”

“Is it fun?” he asked hesitantly, footsteps soft and slow as he trod closer, his coral slippers touching the edge of the beanbag.

Killua shrugged, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

He chewed the lining of his cheek, tilting his head curiously. “Can I watch?”

“Nobody’s stopping you,” Killua snipped cooly, mashing the x button with more force than entirely necessary.

Gon sat on the floor next to the bean bag chair, cross legged, so that his right knee dug into the soft pillowy form under where Killua’s knee bent. Gon’s elbow made a dent next to Killua’s hip.

Killua went rigid, his elbows pressing in on his sides, while Gon leaned forward to inspect the screen. “You’re controlling the people?”

“Yeah,” he forced out, the air hardly moving in his lungs.

“What’s the goal?” Gon asked innocently, leaning his chin into his hand, tilting his head so that his spikes brushed against Killua’s arm.

“No goal, same as Minecraft,” he snorted, a bitter bite to his words. “Just the endless, repetitive drudgery we call life.”

Gon blinked, turning his head towards the other teen, concerned. Killua’s eyes were narrow slits as he stared at the screen, his skin made bluish by the television’s reflection, his eyes electric flashes between his pale lashes. Killua had been a trouble-maker from the moment Gon had met him, sure, but he hadn’t noticed the plunging pessimism. Had it been there yesterday?

“Are you okay?”

“I’m a prisoner,” he spat, dropping the controller in disgust as his sims family all swam in endless circles, decrying the lack of ladders, “what do you think?” Gon continued to stare openly at him, bemused. Killua sank a little into his beanbag, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. His shoulders rose defensively around his ears. “Stop looking at me like that,” he snapped, color flushing across the bridge of his nose.

“Gomen nasai,” Gon breathed softly.

Killua screwed his eyes shut. After a few beats of nothing, he inhaled suddenly. Pushing himself up to sitting, Killua banged his fist on his chest once before exhaling and standing up. He shook his hands out, his shoulders noticeably relaxing. He replied in Japanese. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry. I’m not great with crowds.”

But weren’t these all people Killua knew? Gon moved with a gentle slowness, his movements fluid as he slowly lifted to his feet. “I understand.” His hands stayed lax at his side, non-threatening. Killua shoved his own into his pockets, glancing away. “Sometimes I need air, too. Can we still go outside?”

Killua looked at him out of the corner of his eye, a vulnerability there that immediately drew Gon in. He couldn’t help but smile, a little mystified. Had he somehow already done something to deserve that? Killua’s expression solidified, and he smirked. “Yeah,” he scoffed, a flash of canine, “we can. Come on.”

Killua led Gon straight to the nurse station. He slapped down the black controller on the countertop. An older lady, her blond hair pulled into a single long-curled ponytail, her shoulders and biceps broader than Gon’s by a significant margin, looked up at them, chewing gum. On the inside page of her glossy magazine, Gon could just make out the curve of a very defined oblique disappearing into a snug waistband. He blinked at it curiously, tilting his head to adjust to the angle.

“Hey, Bisky,” Killua huffed, loud, “we want to go outside, escort us.”

She stared back at him with a single arched eyebrow and the face of someone who absolutely could not give less of a shit about Killua's attitude. “Why?”

He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratory tone. “Because it’s hot out there and we both know what that’s going to do to the cotton shirt my friend here is wearing.”

Gon’s head came up immediately, snapping around to look at Killua in disbelief. Bisky’s pink eyes flicked over his arms and across his torso. She shrugged, tossing her magazine into a drawer as she jumped to her white-sneakered feet, brushing her hands down the pale pink skirt she wore.

Despite getting what he wanted, Killua grimaced as Bisky came around through the safety door to their side, beckoning for them to follow while she blew a bubble. “That was way too easy,” he complained, on this side of disgust. “You’re gross, old hag.”

“Legal’s legal,” she answered without a care in the world, clearly immune to his opinion. “All I’m doing is looking at what’s in front of me, same as you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Killua complained loudly, turning his nose up, “shut up.” Gon wondered if it was for his own benefit as much as anyone’s. Gon trailed after them, his gaze following Killua, wondering if he was imagining the red tint to his ears or not.

He had a feeling not.

Outside was a long stretch of desert in every direction, the hard, dusty ground marked here and there with shrubs that hardly reached a child’s knees or angular cacti. What looked to be a walking trail disappeared west, down behind a swell of earth. It was indeed hot, the air dry and smelling of little. His skin seemed to shrink a little over muscle, feeling taut and inflexible already. It was certainly nothing like the cool air of his home, wet and smelling of saltwater no matter how far inland you went, permeating everything. He had hardly noticed it after a lifetime, but now its absence felt stark.

Desert Bloom certainly felt nothing like home. On some level he could understand Killua’s frustration.

Still, it felt like there was something more.

ix.

Killua sat across from Gehl, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, drumming his fingers on his arm. She stared back at him evenly, unblinking, her energy cool and subdued, waiting. If she was just going to wait they’d be here a long time. Killua could be perfectly patient when he had a goal in mind, and his goal was to be stubborn. Gehl had no intention of helping him, she was just checking to make sure his medication was working. She was the addiction specialist, after all, and he definitely didn’t have a damn addiction.

Anyway, how could she check that if he was being medicated for something he didn’t even have?

All she’d done was ask him if anything unusual had happened to him recently.

“Yeah, there’s a new patient and he doesn’t act like a rich kid, very weird,” he responded in a bitchy drawl, rolling his eyes. Gehl didn’t rise to his bait, her lashes hardly trembling as she regarded him.

“Anything aside from Mr. Freeccs.”

‘Freeccs’? Killua snorted softly at the name, the corner of his mouth curling up. What a strange name for a strange boy. It wasn’t Japanese at all, but it wasn’t exactly American either. Freaks? He liked it.

Gehl’s eyebrow curved upwards at Killua’s delighted expression, so he returned it to nothing, his gaze softly contemptuous when he met her eye.

“If you’re asking if I’ve peeped anything strange, I’ll remind you for the fiftieth time that I’ve never hallucinated in my life, that my file is fake, and that you’re all truly bad doctors.”

Gehl’s eyebrow went back down. She made a note on her pad but didn’t say anything.

She hadn’t been his first therapist. In fact, the first therapist assigned to him had quit just recently. He couldn’t imagine why. Gehl was acting as the interim, probably explaining her lack of response to his deliberately aggravating behavior. Cheadle had yet to assign him a permanent replacement. He didn’t know why, nor did he care.

Therapy was a waste of his time, anyway. Just another distraction.

Killua was perfectly aware of the fact that Desert Bloom was owned by Pariston Hill, and with his parents donating a healthy sum to the politician’s cause every other year, he wasn’t about to go anywhere, even if every doctor in the establishment announced him right as rain. So what was the point, really?

Gehl allowed the time to crawl by in silence, her unnervingly unblinking eyes fixed on him. Killua felt a gradual frustration build in his chest, barricaded inside by his defensive body language. It expanded against his ribs, giving him the urge to jump and scream and shout or throw things about, clawing for freedom. He ground his teeth and shoved it down. They’d delight in that, wouldn’t they?

Gehl closed his file as their session period elapsed, standing in one sinuous movement. Her aquamarine eyes flickered in the yellow light as she met his gaze. “Next week you’ll begin one-on-one sessions with Dr. Paladiknight.”

Killua leapt to his feet immediately, abandoning his careless pose. He slammed his hands down on the table, his ears already turning red from angry shame. “With Leorio?! He’s nothing but a glorified grief counselor!”

Gehls’ expression did not shift at Killua’s outburst. She tucked a strand of jet-black hair behind her ear, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Dr. Paladiknight specializes in post-trauma recovery therapy rather than personality disorders, that much is true,” she replied calmly, her sibilant s’s, the most obvious feature of her unplaceable accent, making her placid words feel somewhat aggressive. “However, he’s proven himself the most able to communicate with you.”

Killua gaped at her like a fish, his eyes bulging wide. They were assigning Leorio to him because he talked to him? No. Why?! Growling in displeasure, Killua dropped his head into his hands. Gehl watched his little pantomime without comment, holding the door open for him until he finally moved out of the room. She stayed inside- a nurse would bring her next patient soon.

x.

Gon lay on his back next to Killua, staring up at the exercise room ceiling. A few people mosied around them, a 40-something actor with a gorgeous mane of salt-and-pepper hair working out in the corner- rehab was no excuse not to stay in shape, apparently- but they were mostly left alone.

The game room had been taken over by something called twister, and Killua had been very eager to get the hell out of there before anyone managed to drag them in.

“But why don’t you want him to be your therapist?”

“Because he’s stupid,” Killua snorted. His head rolled sideways, pillowed by his arm, so that he could look at Gon.

Gon met his eyes with a soft smile, lit with curiosity. “I liked my session with him. He’s a really good listener.”

“He can’t be that good if he still thinks my file’s right,” Killua snorted, rolling his eyes and staring up at the ceiling again. His candy stash had run out, and he was starting to get cranky a lot more often from the lack.

“What’s wrong with your file?” Gon asked, twisting onto his side and propping himself up to peer down at Killua. The white-haired boy met his gaze head-on, but for some reason a pink flush stained his cheeks as he frowned.

He broke his gaze away from Gon’s, glancing at the other bodies in the room before kicking his feet to sit up. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered, jamming his hands through his hair, hiding his face behind his elbow for a moment. He regained his normal color, standing up and sweeping his hands over his knees. “Hey, do you spar?”

Gon blinked. In a moment a grin bloomed bright across his face, and he jumped to his feet. “Yep!” He certainly hadn’t expected that question from his new friend, seeing as he seemed to play video games more than anything, but he was ecstatic to hear it. Being part of the island’s martial arts club had been one of his only group activities- not counting helping take in and prep the daily catches of course, everyone on the island did that- even though it was mostly older people using it to stay supple. He’d never really gotten the chance to go all-out.

“What kind of style did you practice?”

“Ah, well,” Gon laughed awkwardly, “it was kind of a mixed bag. Whatever sensei knew he tried to teach us, but it wasn’t really one discipline… some judo, some taichi, some taekwondo, some karate maybe? I’m not sure. He used to be a traveler.”

Killua frowned, musing as he stared at the ceiling. “Sounds chaotic.”

“It sure was,” Gon laughed, “but I had fun!”

Killua was clearly mulling something over, but without vocally bringing up the subject, Gon wasn’t sure about what. He followed the white-haired teen around when he started moving through, asking Bisky to once again bring them outside.

“I’m not your babysitter,” Bisky chided them, but she shook her head and came out of the nurse’s station anyway, spinning a ring of keys on her bejeweled fingers. Gon always noticed the woman’s jewelry. With pieces that flashy, how could you not?

“So what did you and Leorio talk about, anyway?” Killua asked, casual as could be, walking ahead with his hands in his pockets. Gon glanced at Bisky. She didn’t respond to Killua’s lingual switch, apparently uninterested.

Hot, dry air assaulted them the moment they stepped into the sun, the stagnant air biting across flesh. Gon squinted against the harsh glare, following Bisky and Killua around a corner of the building until they walked along its north face, a blessed dark shadow stretching back from the boxy building. Bisky shook open the folding chair she had taken outside with her, sitting along the wall where she could read her magazine and watch them both- not that she watched them that closely.

“An important person in my life died,” he answered Killua in Japanese, his light words and soft smile a contrast to his confession. His gaze dropped to Killua’s feet- they shuffled silently in the dirt, marking a line. “So we talked about him, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Killua replied awkwardly, “sorry.”

Gon noticed that Killua didn’t also offer condolences- not that he minded. It felt disingenuous for people to tell him they were sorry for his loss when they didn’t know the first thing about what had happened, who it had happened to. How it had happened.

“Never mind.” That seemed enough to turn Killua off the subject, and Gon was happy for the reprieve. One hour talking about it in a room alone with a therapist was plenty, and that was a doctor that he liked. “Rules?”

“No face punching,” Killua snorted with a grin, swiping his finger under his nose. Gon flashed an eager grin himself, spreading his arms wide.

“I guess I’ll resist breaking that pretty nose of yours,” he joked. Killua’s mouth immediately twisted into a huffy pout, and he shifted from foot to foot, a bloom of pink spreading across his cheeks.

Was it the heat or did he really blush that easily? Gon looked forward to finding out.

“Hold on, hold on,” came Bisky’s dust-roughed voice, the older woman clicking her teeth together. “Are you two planning on fighting?” She asked, watching them sharply.

“Yes,” Killua answered shortly, rolling his eyes.

Gon, apparently less of a problem despite the fact that he had instigated this just as much, grinned abashedly at Bisky, scratching the back of his head. “Are we not allowed to do that?” He asked innocently. ‘Oh, I didn’t realize that was a rule’ had worked splendidly as an excuse most of his life on everyone but Mito, and he was still plenty young and innocent-looking enough to pull it off consistently.

Bisky’s coral-painted mouth curved into a smirk, her eyes flashing. “Not if you do it improperly. You want to fight? I’ll make sure you do it right. Stretch first!”

The mountainous woman stood up, and Gon was acutely aware that no person could get muscle definition like their lovely nurse without knowing a thing or sixty about their body and how it worked.

Now this was an interesting development.

xi.

Routine was easy to establish at Desert Bloom, even with the shining new addition that was Gon Freeccs. Killua continued to wake up just before daybreak, letting himself out of his room to reacquaint himself with the space before medication-breakfast, except now he had a companion instead of roving alone. Gon was just as good company during the sleeping hours as the waking ones. Bisky took pity on them and taught Gon and Killua both her own brand of martial arts, once again leaving a big fat question in Killua’s mind about what exactly she was doing working here.

Why she was teaching them was obvious to him. They needed accompaniment to go outside, so she’d have to be there anyway, and they were both far less of a pain to occupy when they had goals to work towards. The fact that Gon usually overheated and peeled his shirt off while they were practicing was of benefit to both Killua and Bisky, too, and being aligned with her on that particular subject was something he was still sore about.

Kurapika didn’t seem to mind the silence that accompanied Killua having a distraction, and burned his way through the rest of the center’s book collection. Leorio continued to join their table for meals, though Killua blamed Kurapika’s presence for that more than anything. Soon, the dreaded week between his one-on-one sessions elapsed and he had his first appointment with Dr. Paladiknight. Oh heaven’s above did he expect a disorganized mess.

Killua entered the room with his hands jammed into his pockets as usual, his expression droll, eyes half-lidded and disinterested as they took in Leorio before sliding off him again. He dropped heavily into his chair, kicking off his coral slippers and crossing his socked feet on top of the desk between them. His weight leaned back enough that the chair was only on its back legs, squeaking at the shift.

Leorio flipped his file closed and set it on the table next to an empty pad of paper. He poured water for both of them with a serious, focused expression, chewing on the inside lining of his cheek

“Before we start, I have bad news.”

“Isn’t the bad news us starting?” Killua snorted. From the outside he seemed casual, his spine a lax, lazy line, his limbs sprawled, his voice a long and careless drawl. Internally, anxiety skittered up and down, coiling around his insides tightly. What a shitty thing to say.

Leorio pushed his round-rimmed glasses up his forehead to press his fingers into his eyeballs.
Sure, Killua thought bitterly, very helpful. Utterly reassuring. He ground his teeth, eyes narrowing further at Leorio, his hands curling into fists out of sight.

“Doctor Yorkshire was fine with you wandering around in the morning when you weren’t disrupting other patients, but now-”

“I’m not disrupting other patients!” Killua shouted, jumping to his feet. The movement knocked over his chair, sending the one-piece metal furniture crashing into the carpeted floor. Biting down on any more of his diatribe, Killua not-so-gently kicked the chair backwards away from his feet.

Leorio watched the overreaction with a grimace, pulling his glasses off entirely to wipe the lenses with his tie. Killua tampered down on his anger, though not cleanly, gripping the desk and leaning forward, closer to Leorio than he should, glaring down his nose at the doctor. “Gon’s already awake, what am I supposed to do, just leave him in his room?”

“Yes,” Leorio sighed, sliding his glasses back up his nose. His brown eyes were soft as they met Killua’s, totally empty of retaliation.

Confused by the lack of response, Killua slowly picked his chair back up and sat into it, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. His feet went back up on the desk, pushing against the edge so that it dug into his arches.

“So what’s going to happen?”

Leorio sighed. He took a sip of water, his gaze fixed on the folder that sat closed between them. “We’re giving you something to help you stay asleep longer.”

Killua felt something twist tight and hot inside him, a flame of fury licking up his throat. “So you’re drugging me into compliance?” He growled, his nails digging into his flesh. They left crescent-shaped marks in white, but didn’t bite through the skin. Leorio ignored it.

“It’s out of my hands.”

“Who ordered it?” Killua asked sharply, his lips pulled back from his teeth and his eyes cold as they fixed on Leorio.

Paladiknight’s eyes flicked up to meet his, but far from being cowed by Killua’s killer stare, Leorio stretched a sad smile towards him, his hand flattening on Killua’s file, blunt-nailed fingers spread out. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“It definitely wasn’t you,” Killua snorted. “Was it Gehl? That bitch doesn’t care about anything but her recovery score. Or Yorkshire, right? All that Head Administrator bullshit means she cares more about this place’s fucking reputation than the health of the patients, right?” Killua’s gaze shifted restlessly around the room as he analyzed the situation, his mind going into overdrive as various possibilities stretched before him, each more irritating and more impossible to fight. “Or Pariston. Straight from the top, doing whatever mommy and daddy say, huh? Was that it?” he directed once again at Leorio, poisonously angry.

The young therapist shrugged, spreading his arms out, showing that he had nothing to offer. He kept his lips stubbornly sealed, his expression clearly apologetic despite his lack of reassurance, or answers.

“This whole place is fucking bullshit,” Killua hissed, hackles raised, his face jutted forward into Leorio’s space in a way that was unerringly threatening. But Leorio didn’t back down, either, his fingers lacing together between them, resting on the folder.

“Do you want to talk about ‘mommy and daddy’, Killua?” He asked instead, his voice metered.. Killua’s brows pulled together immediately, a stab of surprise scrambling his anger. “We can.”

His mouth hung open a moment, static bouncing around in his brain. He covered it as soon as he could with Utter Carelessness, rolling his eyes and falling back into his problematic attitude. “What?” he drawled, “you don’t want to talk about my secret hallucinations?”

Leorio shrugged. “Is that what you want to do?”

Killua huffed, blowing bangs out of his face. “I’d rather leave.”

Leorio smiled, picking his pen up and twisting it deftly between his fingers. “I’m afraid that’s against the rules, but I’m sure we can find something.”

Killua eyebrow quirked up. He blinked at the older man. Well, maybe Leorio wasn’t that bad of a therapist after all.

Provided he didn’t start crushing on Killua, anyway. Gross.

xii.

Killua complained to Gon- vigorously- about his new medication the moment he left his session, so it was no surprise to him when, the next morning, the other boy was nowhere to be seen. Gon did his best to work out in his own room, far too cramped for his usual routine. He tested out the stretching regiment Bisky had taught them instead, but even with the fairly self-contained motions, he smacked into his bed or squished his hands into the walls more than he wanted to. The rooms were really for sleep and nothing else, aside from maybe reading.

He didn’t see Killua when everyone was let out of their rooms for breakfast either, and the white-haired boy’s spot was empty as they made their way through a plate of eggs and toast. Kurapika didn’t say anything about it, though Gon caught him flashing Leorio a questioning look. Leorio was awfully quiet, too, steadily avoiding Kurapika’s gaze.

“Leorio,” Gon asked suddenly. The doctor jerked to attention- literally- knocking his knee against the table hard enough to spill a bit of his carrot juice. Gon smiled innocently when the doctor looked at him, his face pulled into a pained grimace, a hand disappearing under the table to massage at a bruising knee. “Sorry. I was just wondering how come you eat with us and not the other therapists?”

Gon wasn’t sure when or where the other therapists ate. Maybe in the backrooms? Or in the private area behind the nurse’s station? Or in the separate building that he heard housed staff, though he wasn’t sure that was actually true since Killua was the one who said it and not anyone that worked there. He definitely didn’t see them doing what Leorio was doing, though, meandering amongst the people and investing himself in their daily lives.

“Different styles,” Leorio shrugged carelessly.

“He means they have some semblance of professional distance ‘n he doesn’t,” a tired, slurring voice cut in from behind him.

His head whipped around, a bright and delighted grin replacing his polite facsimile from before. “Good morning, Killua!”

“Ohayo,” Killua yawned. He slid into the seat next to Gon with an uncoordinated sway, yawning. He stared at his plate for several beats before picking up his fork between clumsy fingers, sticking the sprigs into his egg yolks until they burst all over his plate. Gon wondered if he had willingingly used a word that meant only Gon was the one receiving the lazy greeting, or if it was because he wasn’t awake yet and reverting to his comfort language.

Either way, it made Gon feel- bright. Charmed. Killua was very cute. “Rough Start?”

“Mmph,” Killua grumbled, pushing his tray away. Killua crossed his arms on the table, laying his head down. He rubbed his cheek against his sleeve until he found a more comfortable position, snuggling in. Gon was hard pressed to keep himself calm, giddiness exploding inside him, skittering down his veins. He turned his thousand-watt smile on Kurapika and Leorio.

Kurapika quirked an eyebrow at him as he bit into his toast, shrugging lightly. Leorio was still staring at Killua, both of his eyebrows arched high, wrinkling his forehead. He clearly had never seen Killua in that state before, proving to Gon that Killua had never been a heavy sleeper.

“Why is he on sleeping pills?” Gon asked Leorio, pointing down at the mane of silver spreading over Killua’s dark sleeves.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss another patient’s therapy or medication,” Leorio answered mechanically. He bit into a piece of toast, managing somehow to make the action a loud one. He shrugged with his whole upper body, something Gon had never seen anyone else do in his life. It was kind of impressive, somehow, the way Leorio moved. He was all angles.

“Fair enough,” Gon laughed awkwardly, twirling his fork.

Leorio sank back down. Relieved by Gon’s easy acceptance, he blew out a slow breath. Kurapika tilted his head towards him daintily, taking another small nibble of yolk-yellowed toast, quietly watching Leorio deflate.

Gon was pretty sure Killua was right about those two. And Gon found that very reassuring.

For one, it was cute. Kurapika had a tendency to retreat into himself that worried Gon, so he was glad the blond held the attention of someone that could properly help him. But secondly, and more selfishly, Gon found that boys who noticed other boys noticing other boys tended to be the kind of boys that noticed boys… right? And since he noticed Killua a lot, he liked that Killua… noticed about Kurapika and Leorio, because that meant he noticed boys, too. The way Gon noticed boys.

“What’re you smilin’ about?” Killua slurred. Gon twisted his head around, meeting Killua’s gaze.

The young man had his cheek propped up in his palm, but was leaning on it so hard it deformed his cheek into his left eye, forcing it closed. That left a single red-rimmed, cloudy blue eye peering up at him, Killua’s pretty mouth twisted into a mopey pout.

Killua was definitely noticeable.

“I’ll tell you later,” Gon beamed, patting Killua’s hand. Killua squinted at the dark-skinned fingers covering his own, uncomprehending. Gon grinned, squeezing Killua’s palm briefly before pulling his hand back to grasp his glass of water, draining it halfway in one go.

“Whatever,” Killua snorted, dragging his tray in front of himself again for Effort Part 2.

Xiii.

Sleeping pills were, predictably, the worst. It wasn’t simply that Killua felt sluggish. No, that would be too much to ask. It wasn’t just that the combination of everything he was taking gave him constant low-grade nausea, no.

Up until now, Killua had been using his mornings to reacquaint himself with the common areas. It wasn’t simply because he could; it helped him establish the space in his mind so that he could ground himself in it before the morning round of medication. Not only did he lose the quiet time, but also the chance to exist in his uninfluenced mind.

Now he woke groggy, and was immediately given his morning dose along with breakfast, and with zero time in between to center himself, Killua was left adrift.

The space became gradually fuzzier. His days started to smudge together. Sparring with Gon under Bisky’s supervision slowed as his attention flagged. He’d get distracted mid-drill, find himself slowly collapsing against Gon’s chest with a yawn when he was supposed to practice pinning him. Even Minecraft was getting to be odd, and he’d find himself circling around inside the mountain lair, forgetting where he was within it, corridors all the same.

Sometimes Gon would slip the controller from his fingers, handing him whatever Gon had been working on- odd shapes made of clay, sometimes, Gon liked the hands-on activities- to navigate him out into the minecraft air before swapping them back. He tended to hand back lumps of clay in a different shape, but Gon never complained.

Killua would inevitably sink into his beanbag chair- Gon always sat next to him on the floor instead of getting his own- and twist his head to watch the islander take measure of the new shape in his hand. Curious amber eyes would flick over its new fingerprints, judging and planning, before Gon would use this new direction to create something entirely spontaneous, shaped by both of their impulses.

Killua wondered if Gon kept any of them, though he didn’t remember them as being anything more than abstract forms.

And if this was all a long dream, it was nice to have Gon along to drag him through.

Xiv.

Gon worried about Killua. He worried a lot. The mischievous, bright-eyed boy he had met on his first day, full of smirks and insults, had steadily disappeared into a constantly-exhausted, aggravated teen, his emotions ready to surface explosively at any moment. It put Gon on edge. He saw something he recognized and didn’t like, not that he blamed Killua for it. It was obvious to him that he was struggling with himself, trying his hardest to shove everything down and drown his fragility. His control seemed to degrade with his attention span, and lately Gon had been catching him digging his heels into his eyes, pulling on his hair hard enough to leave his scalp red, silver strands staying curled around his fingers afterwards, kinked in place.

Losing their time outside with Bisky was frustrating to Gon, too. They replaced it with yoga hour, the two ensconced in the back, Killua in the corner and Gon a large guard between him and the rest of the room so that he didn’t feel self conscious. They communicated almost exclusively in Japanese when they were alone, and the markedly soft way Killua shaped his vowels always made Gon smile.

Killua’s lassitude distressed him, though. Yoga was physically active, but mentally it was all about relaxation. What Killua needed was something energetic.

Gon was separated from Killua for two hours daily- one, for his session with Leorio, and two, when Killua went into his group hour (or, once a week, into his time with Leorio instead.)

On the second hour, he went to find Kurapika. The blond was usually easy to find. He really only ventured into four places: his room, the bathroom, the main area, and the reading room. Gon was shocked he hadn’t read the whole stock already.

He sat down in one of the heavy chairs that circled a long wooden desk, slapping a book down in front of him. Kurapika’s expression turned baleful immediately, his eyebrows raised and his eyes half-lidded, his cheeks slack. He dragged his gaze up- and hesitated when it landed on Gon, wrinkles deepening between his brows.

“Gon?”

“Hi!” Gon grinned, waving his hand in greeting. Kurapika blinked, perplexed.

He slowly lowered his book, slipping a strand of hair between two pages before shutting it and laying it on wood. He rested his palm on it, his fingers still curved around its edges. “Hi,” he echoed, an uncertain note in his voice. “Where’s Killua?”

“In his group sesh,” Gon answered matter-of-factly. They both knew Killua didn’t do anything in that hour except laze in his chair and doze through it. “Do you know the activities schedule ?”

“You could just ask the nurses about that,” Kurapika injected, always piercing at the heart of the matter.

“I could, but I need more than a list.”

Kurapika’s mouth twitched. He tilted his head, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. “Then… Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Killua needs to do something stimulating. Yoga isn’t enough, but if we do martial arts he might get hurt.”

The curious bend of Kurapika’s brow deepened into something closer to concern. His grey eyes flicked to stare at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. Gon watched it quietly, knowing that Kurapika focused better in silence, happy to allow him to do the work. Why do something yourself when you know someone who can do it better, eh?

Kurapika’s attention dropped back down to Gon, and he sat up eagerly, his smile widening. He was sure Kurapika would have a solution.

“Gon, thank you,” Kurapika smiled. Gon’s grin turned a little dopey; he had never seen Kurapika smile properly before, and it was certainly something to behold. He was proud of having drawn it out, whatever he had done.

“For what?”

“You just solved a problem for me.” Kurapika stood up suddenly, his chair bumping oddly backwards as it caught on the carpet. “Stay right where you are!” He strode out of the room immediately, his head craning as he looked for a familiar tall figure amongst the milling people. Gon watched him go with a bemused smile, kicking his feet.

Kurapika reappeared within minutes, Leorio in front of him sporting a harried flush and crooked glasses. “What, what’s the hurry?” he asked, twisting to look over his shoulders as the dainty blond guided him in.

“Sit down,” Kurapika said brightly, grasping Leorio’s shoulders and shoving him into a chair. Gon covered his smile with his hand, giddy at the sight of this positive, bossy Kurapika.

Kurapika sat down at the head of the table, his back facing the open doorway. He laced his hands together on the desk, his grey eyes sparking with energy as they glanced from Gon to Leorio. Gon’s eyebrows arched up in surprise. He glanced sideways at Leorio.

Sure enough Leorio seemed absolutely stunned by this sudden forward Kurapika, his glasses still askew on a swiftly-darkening nose. Leorio’s entire face seemed to be going red, in fact, but that might be due to the way he was holding his breath, his lips curled into his teeth.

Coughing once, loudly, to kill his urge to laugh, Gon reached over to shake Leorio’s elbow a little. Shocked back to life, Leorio almost jumped out of his chair, but he managed to turn the urge into a weird tug and jerk at his tie. Gon wisely said nothing, turning back to Kurapika.

“A music program.”

“...What?” They both asked, Gon curious and Leorio completely confused.

“Desert Bloom should have a music program.” He leaned forward towards Leorio, his grey eyes intently focused on Leorio’s brown, either not noticing or completely ignoring the man’s flush and shallow breathing. “I know you have the funds, and there’s extensive literature on the therapeutic benefits of learning music.” He drew in a deep breath, straightening up again, and Gon saw a quality of Kurapika he hadn’t expected- leadership material.

He’d immediately known Kurapika was bright, that much was obvious, but the way he kept to himself suggested he wouldn’t be that great in a group. It wasn’t a downfall or anything, Killua would be hell in that sort of setting, Gon certainly didn’t judge, but it was certainly a trait.

Maybe it made sense after all. He recalled a quote Kite had said… Gon never remembered the specifics of the conversation itself, only the line in question, and at that a vague impression, but it was something like- ‘a man can only master others if he is master of himself.’ And if that was true, then. It made sense that Kurapika was a master of others, because he was certainly a master of himself.

“Frankly I’m surprised you don’t use music therapy already, it’s particularly effective against-”

“We’ve discussed it,” Leorio interrupted. Once he had gotten over the initial shock of being manhandled by the otherwise dainty and polite-to-the-point-of-cold Kurapika, Leorio had switched to intent focus. He was taking Kurapika’s suggestion seriously, and responding from his professional place.

Although Killua was right, he probably divulged too much information to them, right? Or at least Kurapika. But if Killua and Gon disagreed on one thing, it was how much distance there should be between the doctors and the patients. Killua was definitely pro-distance in most aspects of life.

(Or at least he said he was, but instead of getting repelled when Gon slowly encroached into his territory, he had been inching closer, too.)

Gon smiled to himself at the thought.

‘Well,’ drifted Aunt Mito’s exasperated, smiling voice into his head, ‘you’ve always been good at making friends with wild animals.’

Killua’s not a wild animal, Aunt Mito, Gon answered her echo.

But he was, a little, wasn’t he?

“Gon came to me because Killua needs something that requires focus and attention, but also returns on energy. Right, Gon?”

….Returns? Gon smiled uncertainly, spreading his fingers out on the tabletop. “Right.” Better to just agree.

“Music is perfect. It-”

“I’ve read the studies, Kurapika,” Leorio interrupted softly, a bemused half-smile curling the doctor’s thin mouth.

“Then you agree.”

Leorio sighed out an awed breath, shaking his head from side to side. “Yeah.” He stood up, tugging on the lapels of his coat to straighten its line, shyly gazing back at Kurapika. “I’ll talk to the board about it.”

Kurapika’s head bobbed once, his expression still in that intelligent leader's expression. It cracked suddenly, a self-effacing smile curving Kurapika’s mouth as he leaned his head down, tucking a curl of hair behind his ear. “Thanks.”

The smile slid off Gon’s face at Kurapika’s strangely bitter response. Of all the things that had happened here just now, that was the one he couldn’t understand.

Leorio noticed too, his steps hesitating, as if his feet had suddenly locked into the carpet, but after a beat he left the room without saying anything.

Gon watched a frown bend Kurapika’s brows once Leorio passed them, his grey eyes fixed on an unremarkable spot. His mouth twisted, cheeks sucked in, a dark cloud passing over him. He sat up halfway to reach across the table, flattening his fingers on the volume he had been reading earlier and dragging it closer to him.

His face cleared just before he looked up, and he smiled at Gon as if nothing had happened, showing the satisfaction that Gon had initially expected. “That’ll be fun, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Gon replied energetically, beaming, going along with the conceit. No need to make Kurapika self conscious. Gon totally understood not wanting to talk about certain things. “I’m excited! Have you had that idea a long time?”

“A while,” Kurapika confessed, laughing softly behind a thin-fingered hand. “I’m running out of books, you know,” he joked, winking at Gon. Gon grinned in answer, his hands tightly fisted around each other between his knees.

xv.

Lately, Gon had taken to linking their hands to lead him to his sessions, since he always dragged his feet. It only reinforced his instinct to dig his heels in, taking secret pleasure in Gon’s strong fingers tightening around his palm. He whined and complained half because he enjoyed it and half because he liked seeing Gon roll his eyes and shake his head, smiling all the while.

Gon was always smiling. How did he do it? Smiling and curious and interested and invested in whatever there was to offer, even when it was something stupid and small.

Gon was amazing.

Killua still wasn’t sure what the hell Gon was even doing here, and at this point he was starting to think he didn’t even want to know. This- this was very nice. The nicest thing Killua had ever had, maybe. Certainly the nicest thing that had never been ripped from him.

Yet, a familiar, monotone voice echoed in his head, filling his bones with the weight of dread. This has not been ripped from you… yet.

Killua slammed his eyes shut and stopped in his tracks, his nostrils flaring. Heat built up wet behind his eyelids. He ground out a breath, plunging it from his mind.

Fuck you, he spat back, glaring at the floor as he forcefully ejected the image of his eldest brother from his mind.

A calloused thumb rubbed against the top of his hand. He looked up and met Gon’s watchful eyes. Gon smiled when he noticed he had Killua’s attention again, stepping closer, their knotted hands hanging between them. “Ogenki desu ka?”

“I’m fine,” he answered quietly, shaking his head to wave off Gon’s concern. Gon nodded, starting the walk again.

They went past the large room and to a hallway of small office areas, and Killua blinked at the door when Gon stopped beside it, rocking on his heels. “Monday already?” he asked, a perplexed fold between his brows.

Gon chewed on his bottom lip, the left corner of his mouth pulled up into an apologetic expression. “I’m afraid so.”

He sighed, aggravated, dropping his forehead onto Gon’s shoulder. A broad hand swept reassuringly down his spine. Killua rested there for a beat or two before straightening. The door opened before them; one of the older patients slid past them, throwing them a weird look, and Leorio greeted them from the door.

“Hi Gon.” He grinned, winking. “Thanks for bringing my patient by.”

“No problem!” Gon giggled. He squeezed Killua’s hand before letting go, guiding him into the room with a tap against his lower back. Leorio took over, hooking his fingers around Killua’s elbow and gently pulling him through the threshold.

“See you in an hour!”

“Yep!” Gon waved as he walked away. Chuckling to himself, Leorio shut the door, letting Killua walk himself in. He took Leorio’s cushy-looking swivel chair. The doctor didn’t complain, sitting in the shorter-backed patient seat.

Killua obstinately tugged on the desk drawers, but they were all locked. Unbothered, Leorio reached across the desk to grab his mug of coffee, cradling it to his chest and sipping on it intermittently.

Killua stared at him. “So?”

“Oh, I thought you wanted to be the doctor today. I’ll be you.” Leorio kicked off his loafers, sticking his socked feet up on the desk. The chair’s spring squeaked in complaint as he leaned back, bouncing slightly.

“You’ll be me?” Killua answered icily, in total disbelief and totally offended all at once.

“Mmhm!”

“Oh. I see.” A mean smirk spread sideways on Killua’s face, toothy. His lids dropped halfway over his eyes, and they flashed when Leorio deadened his face and stuck his lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. He mimicked biting into a hard candy. Killua’s eyes narrowed into slits.

Then, his face transformed into a goofy mimicry of Leorio’s smile when he got caught out doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing- boisterous and open-mouthed, his eyes closed into happy arches. “Hi, I’m Leorio! I’m your therapist! Or your friend! Honestly I don’t know the difference.”

Leorio faced him with baleful boredom, expressionless as he took a long, loud slurp of his milky coffee.

Killua slammed his hands down on the desk and pushed the chair back with a bump of his thigh, standing and pointing a finger straight at Leorio’s face. “I will tell you what’s good for you because I definitely know more about you than you know about yourself! Hahahaha! I’m THE BEST!”

One of Leorio’s eyebrows arched. He took another noisy slurp, then a third. He smacked his lips. Killua dragged his nails on the desk surface, irritated. What the hell? Leorio was usually so easy to set off. Since when did he have the ability to sit there and take things?

Killua dropped back down in the chair. “Well, nothing to be done for it,” he said in his best bright boisterous moron voice, “I guess I’ll just have to dope you up so you don’t misbehave.” He twisted Leorio’s pen between his fingers, pulling a blank notepad closer to scribble something on it. “Whoops, I wrote the wrong thing.” He tore the paper out and tossed it haphazardly down on the desk. It read ‘I have a fat crush on Kurapika.’

“Oops,” Killua said again, sardonic, glancing up to Leorio. He met placid, unimpressed brown eyes. “I did it again.” He ripped out that page, too, flicking it out. That one said, ‘I should be fired.’

He watched Leorio glance down, tilt his head, and read the note. He watched the man absorb its words and look back up at him. He gripped the pen in his hands tightly, waiting for the response.

It was not the one he expected. It happened slowly, almost too slowly to be noticeable, but Leorio’s lax mouth stretched into a curved smile, his eyes creased. He leaned forward to set his mug down on the edge of the desk, dropping his feet. “Thank you, Killua.”

“For what,” he bit out snarkily, tossing the pad and pen down on the desk with enough force to make them bounce.

“For your honesty,” Leorio replied breezily. He stood up, gesturing to the chair he had just vacated. “Do you want to switch now?”

Killua leaned back, sinking further into Leorio’s fake-leather seat, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head up defiantly. “No.”

“Okay.” Leorio shrugged casually, unbothered. With his long legs, he circled the desk in only three steps. He grabbed the top of the chair, wheeling it backwards until it was on the patient side. He left Killua there and sat on the edge of his desk, his long, bony legs dangling awkwardly. He loosened his tie, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt, shaking it out to give himself room to breathe. “You’re right.”

Killua sat up in his seat, his mouth twisting open but nothing coming out. What?

“Never thought I’d hear that phrase come out of your mouth, old man,” Killua scoffed, his patent smirk returning.

Leorio shrugged. “Learning to admit you’re wrong is a step every adult has to make if they want to be healthy.”

“Who cares about being healthy?” Killua argued back childishly. He planted his feet on the carpet, intermittently pushing with each leg. The chair swayed slightly from side to side in response.

Leorio shook his head. “Almost everyone in this building.”

“I think you’re overestimating a lot of people,” Killua snorted, thinking of the recent recruit who spent their first while begging for a hit in one of the detox rooms. You couldn’t hear them from inside the common space, but you could through the wall of the video game room, if you strained your ears enough. Gon asked him about it, on the first day. Or at least he recalled it being the first day.

He wasn’t sure.

Some people were definitely here for PR. Going through the motions.

Leorio didn’t respond to that, testing the pen Killua had tossed against his pad of paper. Killua watched him doodle for a few more moments, confused. “What am I right about?”

“I don’t know much about you,” Leorio answered casually, laying the pen down and looking up, his expression serious and weighty. “Will you tell me?”

Killua snorted. He relaxed back into his chair, shaking off his coral slippers as he propped his feet up on the desk next to Leorio’s left knee. One of them flipped as it fell, collapsing over Leorio’s brown loafer. Killua frowned at it. “You know plenty about me.”

“No,” Leorio disagreed. “I know the face you put on when you feel unsafe.”

Killua's heart skipped a beat. His mind stuttered to a halt. He found himself staring dazedly at their mixed shoes, a cold chill crawling up his spine. His breath stopped in his chest.

He blinked, his eyes hot suddenly. He touched his cheek- the skin was cool, bending under his finger. When he looked up again, Leorio was watching him with a soft, forgiving eye and a small, apologetic smile.

“You’re not the only one who does that,” he reassured softly, thumbing the cap off his pen. “We all do to some degree.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Killua answered, his voice gravelly and cut with emotion.

“That’s my point,” Leorio agreed with a nod, even though he had just proven the opposite. “So tell me?”

Bemused, Killua rubbed his palms over his cheeks.

Was he really going to trust Leorio, of all people?

(Signs were pointing to yes.)

xvi.

Gon was sure Killua didn’t know what day it was. The white-haired boy was as sleepy as ever, cloudy-minded as he was pulled from breakfast to yoga. He hardly noticed- or if he did, he didn’t complain- when Gon sat down in the bean bag chair next to him, slinging an arm behind Killua’s shoulders as Bisky handed the boy a controller, just as she did everyday. She smirked and clicked her tongue at Gon, but didn’t say anything, strolling out and back to her station and magazines.

Killua sank into Gon’s side, his head tilting to rest on Gon’s ribs as he booted up his game. Gon didn’t really pay attention today, his amber eyes watching Killua’s expression as much as he could through his messy bangs.

No, he definitely had no idea it was his birthday.

Gon shifted a little, sinking more deeply into the beanbag, his leg sliding sideways until it was pressed against Killua’s purple jeans.

Lunch was its usual loud affair, going on around Killua while he propped his head in his palm and stared off into the distance, hardly even remembering that he had food to eat. Leorio reassured Gon that lack of appetite was a totally common side effect, but that didn’t exactly comfort him.

Sometimes Killua’s attention would wander back to the table, and he’d take a few bites or scoop up a few mouthfuls of soup before drifting off again. Gon watched him out of the corner of his eye. Sometimes Kurapika would catch his gaze instead, and it was clear from his intent expression that the blond was trying to communicate something specific, but Gon had no idea what it was.

When it was clear that Killua had completely lost interest in his food, Gon took his hand and led him over to the nurses’ station. (Killua never protested when Gon led him anywhere, though sometimes he’d frown as he looked about him, unsure about what direction they were taking and why. His trust in Gon left the islander with a buoyant feeling he was happy to carry, lightening his footsteps.

“Can we go outside?”

Bisky rustled the pages of her magazine with her thumb as she beheld Gon, her pink eyes flicking to their tangled hands and to Gon’s hopeful grin. “I can’t take you today.”

His brow creased, his head tilting like a puppy. “Why not?”

A small smirk creased her glossy lips, deepening the lines around her mouth. “I’m needed for setup.” She mimed playing a recorder and Gon chuckled, scratching his cheek.

“Gotcha. Can anyone else take us?”

“If you find someone free, ask them,” she snorted, returning to her magazine. Fair enough.

Gon took a step back and turned to face the common space. He caught Killua staring blankly at their shoes, gently bumping his hip into the shorter man’s. “Do you see Leorio anywhere?”

Killua’s gaze lifted, drifting between the bodies that occupied the space for a few moments before he shrugged and looked away again, bored. Gon spotted the tall doctor himself, though.

Gon wove between tables, dragging Killua along as he beelined for Leorio.

“Dr. Paladiknight!” He called out brightly, holding his hand up. Leorio looked up at him with arched eyebrows, surprised by his surname. Gon supposed Killua did call him by his first name to irritate the doctor, but he found it a little silly that Gon would copy that behavior.

“Gon?”

“Can you escort us outside?”

Leorio frowned, then blinked. He pushed his white sleeve up to check his watch. “Do you want more than 35 minutes?”

“No,” Gon beamed, “that should be plenty.”

Leorio’s nodded, his eyes narrowed as he looked about him, clearly thinking about something else. Why did Leorio wear a lab coat, Gon wondered. Just to project an air of authority? As he said, he wasn’t that kind of doctor. “Wait here.” The therapist strode off, disappearing through the double doors to the front. He came back a few minutes later, without lab coat or suit jacket, his sleeves rolled up just above his elbows, a sunhat between his fingers. He waved at Gon from the doors, and Gon obediently led Killua to him.

They passed a short, balding woman on the way out, an assortment of oddly shaped luggage stacked onto a rack beside her. Killua’s gaze followed her as he was dragged past, an uncomprehending frown marring his face. Gon beamed, excited, and pulled Killua outside without answering any of his questions.

The July sun blazed overhead, leaving short and stark shadows on the bumpy landscape. Leorio shaded his eyes immediately, squinting at the stretch of dusty, dry land all around them, scuffing his shoe in the dirt. “So what do you want to do?”

“Killua,” Gon nudged the shorter teen. Blue eyes squinted up at him. “Get ready to run, okay?”

“Run where?” He asked with a moue. Gon inclined his head towards the corner of the building. Killua looked past him and shrugged.

Leorio turned to look at him, having heard nothing but gibberish. “Huh?”

The two boys took off at a dead run, their hands swinging apart. Gon led but Killua was close on his heels. They went around two corners to the back of the building when Gon skidded to a halt and kicked up a cloud of dust sliding around so that he faced the other way, just in time for Killua to crash into him. He laughed, whooping, wrapping his arms around the smaller boy as they caught their balance.

“What in the world-” Killua asked, flushed from the sudden exercise and a clarity in his eyes that Gon hadn’t seen in a while.

He cut Killua off by pressing their lips together, dragging cracked-skinned fingers over Killua’s cheek. He smiled as he pulled away, his eyes soft. Killua stared up at him with his mouth half-open, a soft breath fluttering over Gon’s wet lips, his gaze shy. “Happy birthday,” Gon whispered, their noses touching.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Leorio screeched, coming around the corner, his tie streaming over his shoulder.

Gon stepped back, laughing, his hand dropping to his side. “Just a little exercise,” he teased, loosely lacing his fingers with Killua’s again, as if nothing monumental had just happened.

Killua continued to stare at him, saying nothing as a blush steadily painted his face, streaking across his nose and down his throat, coloring even the shell of his ears.

“If that’s how it’s going to be,” Leorio huffed, planting his hands on his hips and his feet wide apart, “then we’re going back inside!”

“No problem,” Gon grinned. He followed a grumbling Leorio back around the building, his and Killua’s tangled fists swinging between them.

xvii.

Killua found himself stumbling as Gon led him back inside. The absence of the outside heat brought the stark realization that his face burning had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with-

Had Gon just kissed him? Seriously? Did that happen, or was he actually hallucinating now?

That had to have happened, right?

He glanced sideways at Gon; the boy’s shining profile was one to behold, his amber eyes glittering with mischief and his smile charmingly effusive. Light seemed to pour out of him, curling lovingly around his dark, broad frame before spilling at his feet.

Amber eyes met his. He looked away quickly, and lifted his shirt collar over his nose when Gon answered that with a ringing laugh, his thumb sweeping over Killua’s knuckles.

On the list of things they were Not Supposed to Do, engaging in romantic relationships ranked high. ‘It’s not good for recovery,’ Kurapika had explained to him when he complained about it, blinded by his massive crush on Gon, ‘to develop a dependency like that. If they fail, you fail too.’

Well, if he was stuck here anyway, why not fail? Why not fail a lot?

Gon stared back at him expectantly, as if waiting for an answer. Killua shied away from Gon’s inescapable gaze, his lashes flicking over his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “what?”

“I said ‘how do you feel about drums, Killua?’ ”

“...Oh.” Drums? Why were they talking about drums? Killua shrugged, irritated by the non-sequitur. “They’re loud.”

“Okay,” Gon nodded, squeezing Killua’s hand. “How about keyboards?”

Killua shrugged again. What was this line of questioning? “What about keyboards?”

“Do you want to play them?”

Killua and Gon came to a stop next to the group therapy room. Why? He didn’t have a session yet, did he? No, lunch had just ended. “I can already play violin,” he muttered, frazzled and discombobulated.

“Cool!” Gon clearly thought so, bouncing on his toes. And then he led Killua into the room.

Killua spotted Bisky first and the stranger from outside second. His eyes slid to the moving rack with all the strange luggage on it, and now that he was paying more attention to those and not the new person’s curiously large front teeth, he noticed some familiar shapes amongst the plastic-wrapped lumps.

Huh.

Bisky winked at Killua and Gon as she lifted a large black shape off the rack, setting it on a table nearby. Tuba, Killua thought. He came closer, plucking up a violin case. He balanced it between his hands, staring down at it. Gon moved around him to help the stranger unpack, and within minutes the array of instruments were lined up down a long table against the wall. Killua still held the violin, cradling the hard-shelled case against his chest protectively.

Other patients filtered in, and Killua immediately moved so that his back was against the far wall, his attention flicking from Gon to the door to the crowds and back. Gon came to stand beside him, of course, leaning his back against the wall and sliding down it until he was sitting. Killua stared down at the top of his head for several unsteady heartbeats before dropping down next to him, keeping the case in his lap. Gon set a broad hand on his knee, rubbing it gently to calm him down before it returned to his own cross-legged lap. Killua immediately missed the warmth of it, gently bumping his head against the wall. Kurapika slid into the room, skirting around the seated group until he met up with Gon and Killua. He chose to stand, his hands behind his back.

The stranger stood at the head of the table, one hand daintily placed on its corner.

“Good afternoon, everyone” she greeted in a high-fluted voice. “I’m very excited to be here with all of you today.” Despite their initial beadiness, warmth radiated from her dark eyes. “My name is Melody. I’m new here, as I’m sure you all know.”

A warm laugh washed over the room from the gathered patients. A few peered in from the common area, not used to any hubbub. “I knew a few of you requested this program particularly, and to those I thank you…” Kurapika’s feet shuffled next to Gon’s arm. “For the rest of you, I’m sure this is a big surprise!”

Another murmur swirled through the room. Killua sighed, slumping forward. Gon bumped his shoulder into him gently.

“Today we’re going to start music therapy!”

The noise in the room was increasing. Killua shifted uncomfortably, pushing his back into the wall. His hands curled into fists in his lap, hard nails biting into his palms. He really. Didn’t. Like. Crowds.

Crowds are dangerous. You never know who’s hiding in one.

Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off.

He gripped the violin case closer to his chest, feeling the bumpy texture dig into his sternum, lowering his head to rest on the neck. Gon’s hand moved to his knee again, gripping it hard enough to focus his attention but not to hurt. “Do you need to leave?” He asked softly, the Japanese ringing bright and easy to distinguish against the overlaying English exclamations filling the space. He nodded tightly. Gon’s arm came around him, a warm weight on his shoulders that he sagged beneath.

“Something wrong?” Kurapika whispered, his careful voice a lance in Killua’s ear.

“He’s just getting a little overwhelmed,” Gon whispered back, his arm tightening around Killua. Killua gritted his teeth, shame bubbling in his gut, anger at himself an agitant. He squeezed his eyes shut; the case’s handle dug into his upper arm, hard enough to leave a bruise.

Leorio was leaning against the doorway, watching Melody. Gon helped Killua up; Killua felt Kurapika’s grey eyes follow them as the blond flattened himself against the wall to let them pass.

Melody’s shrewd gaze followed them as well, but she continued on with her smiling explanation, drawing no attention to the distressed patient as they made their way around the room behind everyone.

“Do you think you can give Leorio what you’re holding?” Gon asked him quietly as they reached the room’s entrance. He nodded, wordless, his throat filled with the cruel things he wanted to say to himself. Still, it was an effort to make himself let go, and when Gon transferred the case to Leorio’s hands Killua nearly stubbled on his feet hurrying to get out of the room. Gon called out to him, close behind, and caught up again within second, his fingers splayed over Killua’s upper back.

“I’m sorry,” Gon told him politely, gently guiding Killua out of the common area and into the corridor lined with bedrooms. Aside from rustling pages or the shift of sheets from people alone or napping, it was quiet here and mostly empty. All the doors were open, of course, so Gon gently guided Killua into his own room, staying in his space as they sat on the bed. “We wanted to surprise you.”

“Who’s we?” He asked in English, his mouth tasting of ashes. His voice cracked a little, tight.

Gon offered him water from the half-empty paper cup on his bedside. Killua shook his head.

“Me, Kurapika and Leorio.”

He was silent a few beats, staring at his feet. “...Oh.”

“I guess it’s more popular than I thought,” Gon laughed awkwardly, scratching his cheek. He sat twisted so that his torso faced Killua, even though Killua wasn’t pointed towards him at all.

Gon couldn’t be a hallucination, because Leorio and Kurapika interacted with him frequently, and Bisky definitely wouldn’t have the reactions she did if she was just concerned for Killua. Right? No, so he wasn’t. Killua wasn’t schizophrenic, damnit, that was just a lie his parents had told.

Even if Gon felt a thousand times too good to be true.

His lips were still tingling. Now that had to be his imagination, right? Killua ground a knuckle between his eyes, blowing out a frustrated breath. Gon’s fingers wrapped gently around his fist, pulling it away from his face. His smile was still bright, even when it was soft and intimate. He gently uncurled Killua’s fingers, lacing them with his own.

“You want to do something else?”

Yes, this emotion was definitely named ‘guilt’. Killua shook his head, confused by its presence. He’d never been particularly weak to that feeling. But then again, he’d never really had anyone he was afraid of hurting, aside from Alluka. And there was nothing he could do that would rank higher than anything their parents had done.

Except, you know. Abandon her. There. To them.

Another dark wave crashed over him. His blue eyes stared at the floor. He heaved a sigh, turning his head to hide his face against Gon’s shoulder. He shrugged again when an uncertain hand touched his elbow.

“It’s just a lot,” he tried to explain, grimacing against the pointlessness of it. “I can’t get my bearings lately.”

Gon hummed reassuringly, rubbing a hand up and down Killua’s spine. Killua scrubbed his palms over his face, hiding his expression. “I feel like I’m just being led around, and I’m not making any decisions.”

A silence permeated the room. After a few heartbeats, Gon shifted away from Killua so that they were no longer touching. The white-haired boy peered between his fingers at Gon. The tanned islander shifted forward so that he, too, faced the open doorway. His expression had closed off, the muscles in his face rigid, his golden eyes almost orange as they stared straight ahead.

Killua’s heart jumped in his chest, hammering against his ribs. He had said something wrong. What had he just said?

A cold dread poured into him, sharp and painful. “I don’t mean by you,” he added in a rush, his breath trapped in his throat. “I mean- damnit I meant this place!”

A muscle in Gon’s cheek bulged and relaxed. His shoulders sagged a little. Killua dropped his hand onto Gon’s, squeezing it hard. “Of course I don’t mean-”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Gon interrupted softly, staring at the floor. A self-deprecating smile curled the corner of his mouth, an ugly and displaced thing as far as Killua was concerned. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, please don’t be sorry,” Killua shivered. He pressed his suddenly-wet eyes into Gon’s shoulder, fingers curling tight around his wrist. Fuck he was stupid. “Gon, I-- fuck.” He shook his head hard, angry at himself. “Gon- daisuki.”

Gon swept Killua up in his arms, squeezing him tight.

Killua let out a relieved breath, sagging into him.

xviii.

“Gon, are you listening?”

Gon’s head came up. He grinned apologetically at Leorio, fiddling awkwardly with the paper crane between his fingers. Kurapika had taught him how to make them after he noticed Gon picking at his cuticles. “Sorry, I was thinking about Killua.”

“Hm,” Leorio replied to that, his eyes narrowed at Gon from the other side of his desk. While Leorio was fully supportive of the boys’ friendship, he didn’t much like wasting Gon’s session time talking about Killua. He said he didn’t find it helpful.

“Do you think you can take him off the sleeping pills?”

“Gon,” Leorio sighed, capping and uncapping his pen, “I can’t-”

“Talk about another patient’s treatment, I know. But he clearly doesn’t need them, right? He’s super spacey all the time and-”

“Gon-”

“I know he wasn’t like that before. Kurapika agrees with me.”

Leorio’s left brow flexed at the blond’s mention. He dug his thumb into the line between his eyes, clearly aggravated. “I really can’t-”

“I promise I won’t leave my room anymore if he tries to get me out before eight.”

Leorio dropped his hand. He focused on Gon, sucking air between his front teeth as he leaned his boneless body forward. “It’s not your fault-”

“I know it is,” Gon interrupted. His tone brooked no arguments, solid with certainty. Leorio made a face that suggested an incoming headache.

“It’s not. Killua shouldn’t have been left to wander around to start with.”

“Then get a night attendant! Don’t…” Gon waved a hand vaguely at face height, grimacing as he tried to think of the words Killua had used. “Chemically castrate him.”

Leorio’s hand slapped over his mouth. His face turned red, then white, his eyes bulging with the strain of holding a laugh in. He sucked in fast breaths through his nose until he calmed down enough to let go, his eyes wet with the force of his restraint. “I think you mean ‘sedate’,” he corrected eventually.

Gon frowned, glancing up at the ceiling as he tried to make sense of the phrase. “What’s the one I said, then?”

“Never mind,” Leorio sputtered, waving the question off completely. “We’re not talking about Killua anymore.”

“Fine,” Gon mumbled, kicking his feet. “But think about it.”

“I promise to think about it,” Leorio sighed, marking something down on his notepad dejectedly. Gon smiled.

That was all he wanted.

Xix.

Despite the initial fervor, the musical therapy itself quickly became just another part of life at Desert Bloom. Melody came in at one and stayed until six, every day but Sunday. The overwhelming amount of people that had first appeared lost interest when they realized how frustrating learning a piece could be, and prefered to show up only for Melody’s daily 45 minute flute concerts. Aside from Kurapika, who was trying to learn the flute from Melody, and a few artists who already played instruments, Melody’s official room was usually empty.

Killua enjoyed their second try far more. The violin was not as nice as the one he had learned on, glossy wood flaking from the waist where the bow's tension screw had scraped it one too many times, but it had a fine sound. He couldn’t play it without supervision, due to the metal strings, but the familiar shape of it made him feel a little more like himself.

Also, Gon was very easy to impress, and it brought him a glow of satisfaction whenever he tested an easy piece out, frustrated by its uneven tempo and messy fingering, only for Gon to applaud him with clearly unmanufactured delight.

It seemed that Kurapika may have had plans for the three of them to learn a piece, but that idea was quickly thwarted when Gon picked an instrument for himself- bongos.

Fucking. Bongos.

And he clearly enjoyed them, too, joy radiating from him as he slapped his hands over the tight skin, bouncing in time with the beat he was making. It brought a proud smirk to Killua’s lips whenever someone tried to enter the room, only to be scared away by Gon’s viciously enthusiastic drumming.

He was starting to think that Gon was doing it deliberately, whenever Killua wanted to be left alone, which was the majority of the time.

Still, he found that he couldn’t focus long enough to sight read a page, never mind a whole piece, and his muscle memory wasn’t quite as reliable as he had hoped for the pieces he should already know.

Melody always reminded him with a smile that skills faded over time, that there was nothing wrong at all with his skill level, and that it was only natural he be rusty. Killua did not react favorably to her words, but Kurapika’s clear enchantment with her flute and music at large at least stopped him from being outwardly rude to her. (That was what he told himself, but Melody’s soothing voice and reassuring smile had an effect even on him. She was a better therapist than Leorio, he was at least certain of that.)

With Gon playing the bongos, Music Time quickly rose in the charts of Killua’s favorite activities, even if their messy, loud playing made Kurapika roll his eyes to high heaven every other minute. He was probably regretting making this suggestion now, the fool.

Sometimes Gon kissed him while nobody was looking. His lips tingled non-stop, waiting for the next moment of connection, a livewire. Gon’s touch burned life into him, filled his belly with sunlight in a way he couldn’t explain. He submitted to greedy want, a part of him always tracking the Japanese boy’s proximity to him, always focused on the movement of deft fingers and bright smiles. Gon’s whole face went soft when he looked at Killua sometimes, his eyes warm and his smile sweet, closed-lipped unlike the energetic beams he released in conversation, always reaching out to brush Kilua’s hair out of his eyes or to stroke across the back of his collar, skin brushing skin.

He wanted to live in a world just for them.

He should be so lucky, right?

xx.

Gon… Gon liked it here. Maybe it was just that it was a new, different place. Maybe it was Leorio’s understanding, Kurapika’s quiet support, Melody’s soothing comfort. Maybe those things contributed, anyway.

Maybe it was mostly Killua.

Gon went to find the young man when their doors were unlocked at 8am, slipping into his bedroom and closing the door silently behind him. Killua was still asleep, the sun glinting off his hair, sunlight slanting over his soft, half-open mouth. Gon crouched by the bed, crossing his arms over the mattress and leaning his chin on them, inches away from Killua’s face. He gently brushed bangs from his temple, his fingers trailing along sun-warm skin.

Killua shifted away from the touch, his brows contorting, mumbling something Gon couldn’t hear. Gon flattened his hand on Killua’s shoulder, dragging his calloused palm down his arm. Killua’s mouth twisted into a pout, and his grumbling was clearer now, if not quite words. He slapped weakly at Gon’s arm. Gon caught his hand, holding it against his chest for a heartbeat before kissing each knuckle. Killua puffed out a breath and dug his head back into his pillow, tension bleeding out of him until he was relaxed once again into the mattress.

Chuckling to himself, Gon dug his thumbnail into the back of Killua’s hand- not too hard, but certainly enough to sting.

Killua’s eyes flew open and fixed on him immediately, a flash of anger in electric blue eyes that quickly morphed into confusion. “Gon?”

“Ohayo!” Gon greeted cheerfully. He glanced behind him at the viewing window. Newly-freed patients were strolling past, but none of them paid any attention to what was going on in this particular room. Gon took advantage immediately, shifting closer to press their mouths together gently.

Killua scooted forward, sighing sweetly against Gon’s tingling lips; he couldn’t help but smile, blunt fingers stroking through Killua’s moon-bright hair.

“Mmmph,” Killua mumbled. He shifted closer still, his entire body moving towards Gon’s, sleepily nuzzling into the heat of Gon’s throat. “Ohayo,” he yawned, his fingers twinging between Gon’s.

“Breakfast?”

Killua made a grumpy sounds of complaint, rolling over and pulling the covers above his head. Quickly checking behind him again, Gon slipped the sheets down to Killua’s shoulder and pressed a daring kiss to the bump of his top thoracic vertebrae.

Killua threw the covers off, shoving Gon backwards with a heel on his shoulder. His expression was grumpy, but his whole face had gone pink, so Gon bounced up energetically. “Breakfast?” He asked again with a cheeky grin, holding his hand out. Killua slapped it away, scoffing.

“I have to get dressed first.”

“I think you look cute in your pjs,” Gon giggled, rocking on the balls of his feet. Killua rolled his eyes, awkwardly tugging on his thin, too-big shirt, a rude graphic splashed across the front in bright colors. Killua sniffed, narrowed eyes on him. He smiled back, undaunted.

“Are you literally made of sunshine?” Killua grumbled. He set both his hands on Gon’s shoulders, turning him around and pushing him to the doorway. “Give me a minute.”

Gon turned his head to look over his shoulder at Killua, a question posed at the end of his tongue, but before he could ask it Killua went up on his toes to gently return a kiss.

Pink cheeks shifted to red as he skirted around Gon to pick something out of his dresser. Grinning, Gon let himself out, slipping unnoticeably into the steady flow of people heading for food.

xxi.

Was there anything in the whole world better than Gon Freeccs? Killua wasn’t convinced there was, and furthermore was endlessly perplexed as to what Gon was doing here. It couldn’t be right.

The islander had already finished his breakfast by the time Killua managed to make it to the table, so he carried on most of a loud conversation between him, Leorio and Kurapika, detailing some childhood exploits, while Killua yawned next to him and tried to convince himself to eat. It was easier with Gon holding his hand under the table.

Dr Paladiknight was strangely silent through breakfast, interjecting occasionally at wild moments of Gon’s stories, but Kurapika being more talkative than the doctor definitely triggered Killua’s attention. He found it very suspicious.

The doctor’s eyes kept sliding to him, too, and he was poised to throw a barbed question at the man when Gon squeezed his hand suddenly. Frowning, he glanced at Gon’s face and found amber eyes staring back at him, a worried crease bending around the left corner of his mouth.

Fine. He’d wait. He clicked his nail against the side of Gon’s thumb to show he’d understood, stabbing at what was left of the whipped cream mountain melting into his pancakes.

It was Monday anyway, right? Right. Most likely. So they had a session today, and he’d ask then.

(It was, in fact, Sunday.)

The rest of the morning went on the same as always. He played video games cushioned against Gon’s side. He, as always, offered to play the two-player options and Gon, as always, refused. They kept their body language relatively innocent, knowing eyes could be on them at any time, as incidental-looking as possible where two eighteen-year-olds sharing a single beanbag chair was concerned. Gon left him there just before eleven to go to his session, and they met up again at lunch.

Leorio was nowhere to be seen, despite Kurapika sitting across from them as always, quietly reading a volume of obscure indigenous tales with a stoic look on his face. The blond toyed at the hole in his left ear; that thing must've sealed itself up by now, right? But Kurapika still tugged on the earlobe sometimes, when he was distracted by something else. Was he anxious for some reason? More so than usual?

Killua shifted awkwardly in his seat, which drew a glance from Gon. “Wanna go outside?” He asked softly, spearing a fork into his salad.

“Why not,” Gon agreed easily, spitting the words out the side of his mouth as he chewed on a long strip of grilled chicken. Kurapika’s grey eyes flicked to the young man, his mouth tightening in slight disgust. Under the table, Killua curled his pinkie around Gon’s. He felt a flush crawling across his cheeks, and his heart jumped into his throat when Gon responded by pivoting his hand so that his palm covered Killua’s, squeezing gently. Their hands slid away from each other before they got caught, but Kurapika must’ve noticed Killua swapping from his right to left hand halfway through lunch.

Then again it wasn’t the first time, was it?

Did Kurapika keep his mouth shut because he liked the two of them or because he didn’t want to attract scrutiny to himself and Leorio, Killua wondered.

Bisky’s eyebrow arched when Killua asked to go outside, her pink eyes flicking to the ceiling. “Not if you intend to spar,” she told him pointedly. Killua’s eyes narrowed on her. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, swaying slightly and bumping into Gon’s side as he drew himself up. She didn’t look impressed.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

She shrugged, rolling up her magazine as she snatched the keys from the drawer, and Killua was left once again wondering what the hell the woman was even doing here.

The more he thought about it, the less Desert Bloom made any sense to him at all.

Killua and Gon sat in the sunlight. He felt the oppressive heat cut into him, his skin tightening over his bones. After a few minutes Gon tilted forward, executing a roll that left him on his back. He starfished on the hot ground; it probably seared against the bare skin of his arms.

Killua couldn’t resist staring. Gon breathed heavily in the mid-summer heat, his powerful chest moving like bellows, his bronze skin gleaming with sweat. Maybe it was the heat crisping his brain, but Killua was assaulted with the unquenchable urge to run his tongue along seams of muscle and taste it.

A water bottle sailed towards him, hitting the ground next to his knee and bouncing into his lap. He frowned at it and picked it up, glancing towards their guardian. Bisky wasn’t looking at him, but her painted mouth was curved into a smirk, half-hidden by her magazine as she read in the shade. He stuck his tongue out at her, embarrassed by his transparency, but drank half of it anyway.

He crawled over to Gon, holding the water bottle up in his eyesight to offer the rest. Gon propped himself up on one elbow, reaching out to curl his fingers around Killua’s hand instead of taking the bottle from him. He drained the rest. Water trailed down his chin, and he wiped it with the back of his hand, grinning with one side of his mouth. “Thanks Killua.”

Killua swallowed, his throat already dry again. Parched, even. Gon’s smile was so close. Bisky wouldn’t say anything, even if she cared about the rules (she definitely wasn’t supposed to let them spar at all never mind teach them how to be better at it), she’d probably bend them for, uh, less than savory reasons, right?

Gon’s smile had shifted to one of curiosity, his eyes soft and open as he gazed up at Killua. What reason was there to resist? He bent his head down to press his lips hesitantly to Gon’s. The corner of the generous mouth under his pulled slightly. Gon returned a gentle pressure, leaning up into the touch.

His heart drumming in his ears- like Gon on the bongos, fuck, he had a serious problem- Killua tested the seam of Gon’s lips with his tongue.

Gon’s head turned, and Killua was left bereft, his half-open mouth hanging a centimeter from Gon’s flushed cheek. He sat back on his haunches immediately; his nerves zipped and sizzled, aching to run the hell out of there, to turn away before he could see the expression on Gon’s face. In one fluid movement he was on his feet, grabbing the bottle and walking back towards the door.

Gon scurried up behind him; he was up in a flash, grabbing Killua’s arm in an unyielding grip and turning the boy to face him. Killua’s expression had already fallen into stoic dislike, his gaze drifting left over the featureless land around them, his hands shoved deep into his pockets where nobody could see the way his fingernails dug into his palms. “I’m sorry, Killua.” Gon swallowed, bumping their foreheads together, but Killua stubbornly refused to look at him. “I just- I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’re…” Amber eyes dropped to the floor. Gon took a step back, a guilty sadness drooping his usually-smiling mouth. “I- it’s not. Fair. To you. I shouldn’t have kissed you in the first place, I know that, I just-” He stuttered to a halt at Killua’s enduring silence, his hands twitching at his sides.

“No, I get it,” Killua interrupted coldly. He rocked back on his heels. Gon shot him a pained glance, and Killua met it head on with cold eyes and a slowly-building sneer of anger. “It’s fine to do what you want, but if I want anything it’s because I’m sick, right?”

Gon’s brows drew together, his head shooting up, stress tightening around his eyes. “What? No-”

“I can’t make my own decisions, is that right?”

“I-”

“I mean it’s no secret I’m here because I can’t even tell the difference between reality and imagination, right?” He steamrolled over Gon, rejection making him flinty and sharp, throwing up all the barriers Gon had never even seen.

“Killua-”

“It’s so kind of you to take advantage of me only this far, but not any further,” he spat poisonously, shoving at Gon’s shoulder.

“That’s enough!” Bisky’s heavy hand landed on either of their shoulders, forcibly prying the two boys apart. Her tone brooked no arguments, and neither did the hard expression on her face. “We’re going back inside. Do you need a time-out?” She added sarcastically, marching them both inside.

“Fuck you, old hag,” Killua spat, twisting out from under her grip the moment they cleared the entrance into the common area. In response she let Gon go but grabbed Killua’s elbow, dragging him into his bedroom and locking the door behind him.

“I’ll be back for you in fifteen minutes,” she told him as he growled at her through the door, slamming his palm on the little viewing window. “And if you haven’t calmed down by then, you’re staying in longer.”

“Why isn’t Gon stuck in his room?” He taunted with his teeth bared, glaring at her, “smells like favoritism to me.”

Bisky snorted, rolling her eyes. She clucked her tongue at him. “I don’t need to understand a language to know who the aggressor is in an argument like that.” She shrugged her shoulders, as if to say ‘what can you do?’. “I’ll let you out when you’re ready to come out.”

He stayed until dinner.

xxii.

Buzzing filled Gon’s head. He couldn’t focus on anything except the cold look in Killua’s eyes. It was an expression he had never seen, one he never wanted to see again and yet couldn’t forget. It took up the entirety of his mind’s eye, blocked out everything but the sensation of ice water filling his veins.

He hardly paid attention to his steps, staring blankly at the floor. He shuffled into the music room without realizing he had done it, wanting to hide himself in a familiar place. The video game room wouldn’t do, it was so thoroughly Killua’s that he couldn’t-

He shambled straight to the corner, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. He curled his legs up against his chest protectively, leaning his head down on his crossed arms. The halting, not-quite-in-key music floating about his buzzing head stopped abruptly. He could feel the burn of eyes on him, and it only made him curl more tightly into himself.

A gentle hand landed on his arm. He trembled beneath it, pushing his forehead harder into his flesh. The last thing he wanted was a soft-voiced nurse asking him if he wanted something to help him calm down and take a nap.

“Gon?” Kurapika asked softly, “are you alright?”

He peered above his sleeve, his brows twisted together as he stared back into soft grey eyes. His hands tightened around his arms, making the flesh bulge with the force of his grip. “Killua’s mad at me,” he answered stickily, swallowing the knot in his throat. Kurapika’s mouth pulled at the corners, strained, and he attempted a smile to a strange result as he stoked Gon’s shoulder and upper arm soothingly. Behind Kurapika, Gon could make out black eyes watching him for a moment before Melody picked up the flute from her stand. She walked so that her short form blocked the doorway before starting to play a sweet, soothing piece that brought to mind sun-lit meadows. Gon sighed, the music chasing away the buzzing but not the ache, turning his head so that his cheek rested on his arms now and Kurapika could see his face.

The blond continued to touch Gon with soothing strokes, intermittently switching between his arm and shoulder, his back, and through his hair.

“I’m sure he’ll get over it,” Kurapika told him, entirely devoted to being a caretaker in this moment. “You’re the only person he even likes.”

“He likes you, too,” Gon mumbled, his gaze flicking to Kurapika’s before returning to the floor. A scratch at the base of his scalp had his eyes closing, an exhausted breath huffing out of him.

“If you say so,” Kurapika smiled, “but not the way he likes you, right?”

“That’s exactly the problem!” Gon cried out, throwing his head back- it thudded loudly against the wall, and Kurapika looked alarmed, but Gon didn’t do it again so he settled back on his heels. Gon knew that his eyes must be red- they stung, sparks of tears he wasn’t even attempting to hold at bay.

Kurapika was silent for a few beats, measuring, clearly confused. “What do you mean?”

It must’ve been obvious to Kurapika that their feelings were mutual, but Gon was agitated that Kurapika couldn’t understand why it might be an issue. Killua- god, Killua was cute, and Gon’s impulse control was absolute shit sometimes, he was well aware of that, but- Killua.

It was unfair. He twisted and curled his feet, kicking off the boots he had worn inside, even though he wasn’t supposed to. But it was his fault, too. He’d asked to be let out. He’d wandered around with Killua every morning, knowing they weren’t supposed to, egging him on, grinning at him through the window. And then when Killua got punished for it, Gon-

Gon kept pushing, tangling their hands together, moving into Killua’s space, touching him, laughing with him, even when it was clear Killua wasn’t entirely sure what was going on around them, even when Killua would blink around at their unchanging situation as if the walls were moving, and especially when Killua felt unbalanced and unsafe, happily opening his arms to him and becoming a source of solace.

He’d taken advantage of his weakness to make the boy need him because he’d twisted himself around Killua trying to escape his own mistakes.

And now this was ruined, too.

Gon swallowed thickly, looking up at Kurapika through his stuck-together eyelashes, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. “I took advantage of him.”

Kurapika was quiet as he sat back on his haunches, the hand that had been stroking Gon’s back settling in his lap, perplexed. “That…” he tugged at his earlobe, gently nibbling his bottom lip. “That seems unlikely.”

“You’ve known Killua longer than me!” Gon pointed out with a huffing pout, his bottom lip rolling downwards childishly. Kurapika’s eyes widened a little at the expression, a dainty hand lifting to cover his smile before it could offend Gon. It wasn’t fast enough, and he glared at Kurapika, a swelling rage bubbling up in his chest. “It’s not funny!” His fist slammed into the floor; he flinched at the pain, shaking out his hand. Kurapika’s eyes widened further, the smile immediately wiped from his lips. A faint growl slipped from Gon’s mouth, mostly colored by hard frustration. “Those pills mess him up! Sometimes he doesn’t even know where he is, how is that right?!”

Understanding erased the lines of tension between Kurapika’s brows. The blond’s eyes dropped to the floor momentarily before he glanced at Melody behind him. Though the musician was still standing in the open doorway, she had stopped playing music, and was now watching Gon intently, ready.

“It’s not right, Gon,” Kurapika answered softly, his tone metered, careful to be as unaggressive as possible, “but it’s also not your fault.”

“YES IT IS!” He screamed suddenly, on his feet. Gon kicked the nearest chair with as much force as he could muster. It crashed into a cluster of them, knocking several over, before tumbling to the floor. Kurapika was up in an instant, quickly backing up along the wall away from him. Melody stepped into the common area and shouted something out towards the nurses station. “I’m sick of people telling me it’s not!” he spat out, red faced, a vein bulging in his neck as he gnashed his teeth. He followed Kurapika, easily overtaking him, slamming a palm into the wall beside his head to make him stop moving, to actually listen to him for once instead of listening to whatever Leorio said. To pay attention already why was nobody paying attention? “I KNOW IT IS!”

Kurapika stared back at him with wide eyes out a white face, his mouth a flat, pressed line and his breath held.

“It’s my fault,” he bit, flattening a hand on Kurapika’s chest and holding him pinned against the wall. “Just admit it.”

Despite his precarious position, Kurapika straightened out, his eyes flashing as they narrowed. He held Gon’s gaze with a strength Gon hadn’t seen before, slowly but irrevocably shaking his head no. Gon reeled back, his lips peeling away from his teeth, his eyes hard and orange as a beetle’s shell. The hand against the wall pulled back too, balled up, and slammed back into place.

Gon’s punch had enough force to drive into the drywall, white plaster dust exploding over Kurapika’s cheek. “ADMIT IT!”

Hands wrapped around Gon’s arms, dragging him backwards. He batted at them, veering wildly to attempt to dislodge them. Bisky’s face hovered over his, one eyebrow poised, her face stoic and somber. “Enough already,” she told him quietly, though there was nothing soft in her tone. He felt a sharp pain on his arm and twisted, an open hand slapping at whatever was causing it.

The room went dark.

Xxiii.

Killua was in a mood when he appeared at dinner, slamming his tray down at his usual place. “Oh, is Gon not here?” he gritted out between his teeth, a sharp edge to his snide words. Kurapika looked up at him and back down to the featureless tabletop without a word. He drank slowly from his tea, unfocused. Leorio’s gaze strayed on Kurapika as he ate, lines of tension around his eyes and mouth that made him look older than his twenty-something years.

“What’s up with you, old man?” Killua taunted, almost eager to spread his sour disposition. Leorio’s eyes slid sideways to him, something unreadable in his dark eyes, and back to Kurapika. Then they moved to his meal. Leorio hunched over his food, picking at his shank with his fork until the meal slid away from the bone. He ate in large bites, his jaw working as he chewed. Killua made a disgusted face, sliding a little further down the bench away from the doctor so he wouldn’t have to see him.

His gaze swept surreptitiously over the cafeteria. Gon was nowhere to be seen.

Good, he thought to himself, stabbing viciously at his green beans. He didn’t want to see him anyway! Fuck that kid!

He could practically hear Bisky’s voice drifting back to him, an unimpressed eyebrow cocked above her sharp eyes, her tone droll: ‘Yeah, fuck that kid, right?’

Pissed, he shoved his tray off the table. His plastic plate bounced off the floor, splattering mashed potatoes all over his slippers. Kurapika didn’t even look up. “What the fuck’s up with you?” Killua growled, sharply prodding Kurapika in the shoulder.

Leorio’s long, wiry fingers wrapped around Killua’s wrist, their grip far stronger than Killua had expected, pulling his hand away from the blond. Killua’s mouth opened on a(n accusatory) question, but the words died in his throat when Kurapika’s gaze dragged up and locked with his. The man’s grey eyes were entirely blank, as if he had completely withdrawn.

Beside him, Leorio shook his head from side to side before slowly releasing Killua from his grip. The boy jumped to his feet, shaking furiously. “Fuck you!” he howled, angry tears pricking the corner of his eyes, “I wasn’t hungry anyway!”

He sidestepped the poor attendant tasked with cleaning up his mess, stomping out to the common room to demand a video game controller.

He didn’t need anybody anyway.

Xxiv.

The ceiling was a murky, cloudy white when Gon managed to open his eyes, fighting against a seal of dried mucus. He tried to scrub it away, but felt a resistance against his wrists at the attempt. He blinked again, hard, swallowing against the weird taste on his too-thick, buzzing tongue. His head rolled to the side, fuzzy edges slowly solidifying until he found himself squinting down at his hand. A red-brown leather strap sat securely over his wrist, thick cotton padding keeping it from biting into skin.

“Why ‘m-y here?” He asked the attendant in the corner, his tongue too heavy and his lips too thick for the words to come out smoothly.

The young man in mint-green scrubs smiled with an awkward shrug, his hands rubbing over his shorn hair. “Let me get the doctor.” He had to unlock the door before he could leave the room, and once he passed through it it closed again by itself with a weight of finality. Gon bit his lip hard enough to elicit sparks of pain even through the tingling numbness.

The attendant soon reappeared with a doctor Gon hadn’t seen before- a medical doctor as opposed to a therapist, he judged from the stethoscope slung around the man’s neck. He was tall enough, likely of asian descent, but Gon didn’t think Japanese and he felt too vulnerable- too shy perhaps- to test the language and have it fail.

“Mr Freeccs?” The man questioned with a soft, even voice. Despite his professional voice, his shirt was only half-tucked, a detail that seemed wildly important to Gon’s muddled brain. Half and half?

“Yes?” Gon asked, his voice cracking. Mint-green scrubs came closer, holding a straw against Gon’s bottom lip. He drank the water until there was nothing left, sighing in relief as the young man backed away.

“How are you feeling?”

“Confused,” he answered with a pout, his brow furrowed.

The doctor chuckled awkwardly. “That can happen, I’m afraid. Physically?”

“Sluggish, I guess,” Gon mumbled, rolling his tongue against his teeth. “Tingly.”

“‘Tingly’?” the doctor repeated to himself, frowning as he scribbled something on his chart. Gon shrugged, looking around the room. It didn’t have any windows, except for the small viewing portal in the door. There were four beds, though his was the only one occupied. Was this the room he had heard that person moaning from through the video game room wall before?

“Why am I tied down?”

“Oh, it’s just a safety precaution. Confusion manifests unpredictably.” He smiled benignly at Gon, making a gesture towards MintGreen, and the nurse immediately moved to undo the leather straps. Gon rubbed his released wrists, even though they didn’t hurt.

“Okay?” MintGreen asked, bouncing up on his toes a little, his soft brown eyes peering into Gon’s as he looked for signs of pain or distress. Gon nodded mutely, testing a smile. MintGreen beamed back before shuffling around the bed and undoing the straps at Gon’s ankles. He hadn’t realized those were there.

“Thank you, Zushi,” the doctor smiled at MintGreen- Zushi- before turning his attention to Gon again.

Gon sat up slowly, fighting against a feeling of heaviness. Zushi startled towards him when he swayed a little but didn’t reach him before Gon caught himself. He blinked hard against a wave of dizziness, pressing his bare feet to the cool floor. The temperature shift sent a waking shock up him. He stared at the floor uncertainly, his hands tightening and relaxing in the sheets. “Did I do something?”

“I’m afraid there was a bit of an incident, yes.” The doctor grimaced, tucking his pen into his breast pocket. “But I’ll leave it up to your therapist to talk to you about that. I’ll let Dr. Paladiknight know you’re awake and he’ll come get you. Do you need anything in the meantime?”

Gon shrugged, scratching his shoulder, without taking his eyes off the floor. He remembered- upsetting Killua and then being upset, but nothing much else. It all kind of got distorted after Bisky separated them.

He frowned at the thought, his fingernails stilling on the skin of his neck. Twice, maybe?

That couldn’t be right.

He looked up when the door shut. He was alone again.

xxv.

Killua woke groggy and slow the next morning as usual. He didn’t get up right away either, staring at the wall through his eyelashes, a heavy weight in his gut anchoring him to his mattress. A sharp knock against his door dispelled the thoughts that had been circling in his head, and he rolled over slowly to stare at its source.

Kurapika’s blond brows arched as their gazes met, analytical grey eyes narrowing slightly as he took Killua in. “Gon’s back.”

Killua rolled onto his back, glaring at the ceiling. “So what?”

“I thought I’d warn you.”

Killua paused, a question hanging in the air between them. Warn? Kurapika liked Gon, didn’t he? Killua clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “...Thanks,” he muttered stickily. He rolled to face the window once more, pulling his covers over his head, even though it was already starting to warm up too much. He heard Kurapika’s slippers shuffle against the carpet as the man left, gently shutting Killua’s door behind him, despite the rules. Fuck it. He squirmed deeper into his pillow, resolving to stay.

Leorio came by around three, when he should’ve been attending his group session, with leftovers from lunch. He set the tray down on the small bedside table, sitting on a chair he had carried in from the common area.

Leorio didn’t push Killua to talk, though he did push Killua to eat. Killua talked anyway, haltingly and in a dark tone, long moments of silence punctuated by sharp complaints about whatever came to mind. Mostly Desert Bloom and its total failure of a staff. Leorio didn’t seem to take anything he said personally, much to Killua’s irritation.

The therapist stood up again once the hour elapsed. He circled his chair, grabbing the top of it with both hands. Instead of leaving immediately as Killua had expected, he swayed his weight forward, squinting at Killua through his tiny-lensed glasses. “I have good news and bad news.”

Killua’s expression went slack, ire sparking from his eyes as he dragged them to Leorio. At least he didn’t start with ‘I have bad news’ this time, but Leorio seriously needed to work on his tact. “What?” he spat out, blackly irritated.

“You don’t have to take your evening dose tonight” - no sleeping pills, was what Leorio meant. That had to be the good news, then. “And you’re getting a visitor tomorrow.”

Killua paused, bemused. He kicked his foot against the bed, fingers twisting into his bedsheets anxiously. That also sounded like good news?

Except- no.

Shit.

His expression darkened, mouth thinning and paling as he pressed it into a thin line. “Who?”

“Your brother Illumi,” Leorio confessed softly, his warm brown eyes dropping to the seat of his chair. Killua hadn’t spoken a lot about Illumi- but what he had said made it very clear that the relationship between the two was contentious at best and downright abusive at worst. That, at least, explained the guilt in Leorio’s face. But they were still letting the snake see Killua, weren’t they?

Leorio’s guilt didn’t matter. No, only Killua’s parents’ influence did.

“Cool,” Killua intoned in hard sarcasm, gritting his teeth. “Thanks for warning me I guess,” he mumbled, not in the least bit thankful. Leorio’s returning smile was strained, not at all reassuring. The doctor nodded. After a long period of silence and a baleful stare from Killua, he nodded again, picked up the chair, and carried it out.

For the first time since his first combative week at Desert Bloom, Killua stayed in his room all day.

xxvi.

Gon was not having a good day. His body was strangely sore, and it felt sluggish and slow, taking a moment to catch up to his impulses. It didn’t help that Killua was nowhere to be seen- he had a feeling Killua was still in his room, there wasn’t really anywhere else to hide, but he also had a feeling intruding into the boy’s personal space would not be welcomed at this time.

He spent the morning hanging out in Kurapika’s vicinity, thumbing through a few books, but none of them caught his attention. He went on a walk outside accompanied by a young, dark-haired nurse he didn’t really know very well, finding those trails Dr Yorkshire had once mentioned but he’d never bothered exploring.

A nervous energy filled him, vibrating in his chest and skittering down his limbs, making him feel restless and poorly contained inside his body. He wanted to see Killua, wanted to apologize, wanted to- wanted to cry, frankly, wanted to know why Kurapika was watching his movements so closely now, wanted to know why Leorio looked so grim and exhausted, wanted-

He wanted a lot of things but mostly he wanted to rewind all the way to the beginning and stop himself from setting them all down this path in the first place.

If he’d only kept his hands away from Killua, this wouldn’t have… He bit his lip as the building came back into view over a dusty dune. This wouldn’t have happened. They’d all be…

His hands curled into tight fists at his sides.

‘Nobody is here because of anything you’ve done, Gon,’ Leorio would tell him patiently, a small, reassuring smile on his lip. Leorio was easy to read, though, his emotions shining in his dark eyes, and Gon could always see his sadness.

Leorio didn’t like it when Gon blamed himself for things. Gon knew that. But most of the time, things happened because someone did something. And sometimes he was that person, no matter how sad Leorio was to hear him say it. Sometimes things were his fault.

And Killua, hiding in his room? Gon’s fault.

The wild energy in his chest only grew as the sun moved west, and by the time it set Gon was a ball of agitation that couldn’t be diminished. He slammed on the bongos hard enough that Melody gently insisted he go back outside. Bisky crossed half of the common area to grab his collar and drag him outside, where she pushed him through the drills they had once practiced to exhaustion. He noticed her glancing at her watch several times, but whenever he made a move to speak she barked at him to start the next set. If you weren’t too tired to talk, you weren’t too tired to work out, she told him in a tone brooking no arguments.

That worked well enough for him, the simmering resentment locked in his chest forced out in fragments with ever strained breath. They went back inside for dinner- it might be more accurate to say Bisky assisted him inside for dinner- Gon’s limbs jelly as he collapsed into his usual seat. Bisky didn’t say anything, though she did very kindly fetch him a tray of food. She nearly doubled his usual portion, setting it down in front of him without a word before disappearing from the room altogether.

“Was that Bisky?” Leorio asked as he sat down, his eyes tracking her pink ponytail. “I thought she was off hours ago,” he muttered under his breath, perplexed. Gon lowered his head over his tray and took a bite of the soft-fleshed meat. His stomach jumped at the first taste, and he was suddenly aware of a ravenous hunger. Gon demolished his meal, his nose practically touching the mashed potatoes as he shoveled everything into his mouth, barely chewing before swallowing. He could feel Leorio’s eyes burn into the back of his neck, but he ignored them.

Clearing his plate and soothing his hunger gave room for the exhaustion to move back in, and when Gon stood he was surprised to find himself swaying, so he went directly to his room. He hardly bothered to shed his clothes, kicking his coral slippers off under the bed somewhere before collapsing face-first onto his mattress. He was asleep in moments.

Xxvii.

For the first time in nearly two months, Killua woke before the sunrise. He stared at his ceiling for several moments, at the soft unmoving shadows that brought out its texture. He let himself out of his room in moments. He left his slippers where they were, padding along the long hallway and into the muted emergency-lighting-only half-darkness of the common area.

Where someone else might have found the empty, dark building dream-like, Killua was experiencing the reverse. The cold seeped up from the vinyl flooring into his legs, and it was the most real Desert Bloom had felt in a long while.

He followed the bones of the structure, his hand dragging flat against the walls. He walked the entire perimeter of each room, even the ones he normally skipped, like the art studio. Huh. They had pots of wet clay in here. That was worth remembering for the future, in case he needed to fashion anything.

He sat down in Kurapika’s favorite chair in the library, his hands folded together on his stomach as his pale eyes flicked over the spines of books, though he was incurious about taking anything off the shelf. He shifted in the chair from side to side, finding places where it had been worn by the specific shape of Kurapika’s body. He had thin hips, that one.

He picked up the violin when he made it to the music room. He flicked through the scores available- Melody locked them up when she left every night but if Killua’s door wasn’t going to defeat him, neither was a little filing cabinet lock. He found a few of the ones he had attempted, pieces he already knew, a piece he had attempted to sight read before to little avail, and something new.

The pieces he knew went well. Not as well as he had hoped, his bowing was messy (though he blamed a lack of rosin for that, and didn’t know where Melody kept it) but his muscle memory ensured his fingerings were in key. His first attempts were a little slow for each, but the sound was clear and bright.

Killua had never really cared that much about interpretation, even if his teacher had, even if Kikyo had sobbed loudly at him that he’d never be able to pass as a musician if he didn’t, so he wasn’t about to make anyone cry from his playing, but at least he was getting the notes right, and in time at that. His vibrato was a bit shit, but he’d always thought of it as a tool to eke an out of tune note to the right place anyway, so whatever.

So it definitely was those fucking pills and not that he was rusty, no thanks for the reassuring but crap excuses Melody.

Sight-reading went well. Very well. Why did anyone even bother memorizing pieces? (Killua’s musical skill was clearly not matched by Killua’s interest in music, something which slowly drove Kurapika to madness.) It was much easier now that the notes were crisp black on white and not a vague blur of information he couldn’t parse.

By the time he returned the violin to its hard case, he had found once more the cloak that had protected him before- self-assured smugness, a steely resolve to set himself against his enemies, against the world itself and against every ear that bent towards him that rejected his truth. He didn’t need anybody but himself, and no matter what pill they put him on, no matter what they injected in his veins, no matter what soft pleasantry they forced into his ear over and over, he knew himself and he wouldn’t let himself believe any lie they told him.

He’d been stupid to depend on Gon the way he had. Dazzled by his bright smiles (and quite nice face, frankly), by his unwavering, puppy-like attention (the big amber eyes didn’t hurt either), by his inexhaustible spirit (and probably body come to it), his blind positivity...

Because that’s exactly what it was. Blind. Unknowing.

Not like Killua. Gon was a wild kid from an island with a single village on it. His childhood had been all running through the woods and befriending animals, Disney shit with a tragic backstory made much softer by the aunt that had raised him from infancy. And Killua-

Well.

Needless to say, he doubted Gon would ever be able to understand Killua, and that was if Killua even told him about his life- the parts of his life that mattered, not what candy was his favorite and which video games he liked to play.

He’d been stupid, and he’d let himself live in a fantasy, because he was stuck here anyway. But what good was that?

What fucking good was that?

Gon would leave when he was ‘fixed’ or whatever, and Killua would stay. Here. Forever. Alone. And all he wanted to do was leave, too. Go anywhere.

Not here.

He turned his head towards the windows, the pastel sky shifting towards a more vibrant blue already. He stared blankly at the world outside, what little of it he could see: a dusty dune and the spearing point of a healthy cactus. His blue eyes flicked to the clock set above the nurse’s station. It was nearly 7:45. Slipping his hands into his pockets, Killua shifted into a faint slouch, and shuffled back to his room. He shut the door with a quiet click, sat on his bed, and waited for the morning nurse to reopen the doors.

xxviii.

Gon woke up at sunrise, as he had every day for years uncounted. He skipped his usual exercise routine, every muscle screaming from his exhaustive and unpracticed workout yesterday, and stretched instead, long minutes filled only with the sound of his puffy, strained breathing. At least, until the music faded in.

It was quiet and faraway, and Gon had to strain to hear it even with his sensitive ears, but it was there nevertheless. He focused on the sound instead of his breaths, his eyes closed as he tuned in to the clear notes that cut through the silent building.

It had to be Killua. Who else could it be? The sound of it was bittersweet, and as he leaned his forehead against his knees, thighs straining from the pull, pushing a breath out between his teeth, he felt his eyes water, his chest filling with heat.

His ear certainly wasn’t musically trained, so he wasn’t entirely certain why, but it sounded… better than it had before. And just the thought of Killua being up at this hour was-

That made him happy. He was happy Killua was awake, was alert. He really was.

His tears splattered against his legs, and he trapped a whimper in his throat before blowing out another shaky breath.

When the music stopped, Gon climbed to his feet. He flattened a hand against his door, peering through the small window. He watched the corner that led to the music room; the moment Killua passed it his gaze followed the head of silver instead. He took in Killua’s expression as the boy paused at the window, the sunlight making his pale features gleam in the half-gloom of the common area.

The expression of confusion that had become so familiar to Gon was gone, replaced by a bored self-assurance that showed in every economic movement of Killua’s body, in the curved line of his slouched spine as he slipped his hands into his pockets, in the half-lidded eyes that roved the space.

Gon watched as Killua made his way across the room, disappearing from sight to enter the corridor all their bedrooms were attached to. After a few moments, Killua walked past his door. Gon held his breath without realizing it, a pleading look filling his amber eyes, but Killua didn’t glance at him. Gon’s gaze fell when Killua disappeared past. He rested his forehead against the cool glass for a moment before shuffling to his bed, sitting on the edge with his head practically hanging between his knees.

He didn’t leave the room until the patients had stopped streaming past him to get to breakfast.

xxix.

Breakfast at their usual table was an awkward affair.

Killua had been the first to arrive, and he had sat down in his usual seat with his jaw set. He had sat here since he’d first come to Desert Bloom, long before Gon, and he was going to sit here long after Gon had left, too. If Leorio eating here hadn’t made Killua stop, some punk kid who was going to get his hopes up only to stop him any time Killua wanted anything wasn’t going to fucking stop him either!

Kurapika appeared before Gon did- and so did Leorio, which was a bit odd. Gon was usually pretty quick in the breakfast line, hungry from his morning workouts- or at least Killua had assumed that to still be the case, not that he’d been awake at 8 for… months.

Fuck.

When Gon did appear he kept his hands and elbows to himself, his head down as he ate silently. Killua’s expression was one of cool disinterest as his gaze drifted across the other tables, the brazen attitude of a teenage rebel. He didn’t attempt to start a conversation and didn’t care when Leorio did, either. He didn’t care to listen in the first place.

“Killua.”

He didn’t care about anyone at all. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.

Illumi was coming.

Killua’s hand clenched around his fork hard enough to leave red lines in his palms.

“Killua.”

It obviously wasn’t that he expected to be safe from his family when he was here- they were the ones ensuring it, after all. But he found it particularly laughable that Desert Bloom professed itself the best mental wellness and recovery center in the whole country and yet would willingly put an 18-year-old child in the same room as his fucking abusers. Not that he was a child in most senses of the world, blood-on-his-hands and all, but they didn’t fucking know that. They didn’t, after all, believe a word he said.

“Killua!”

“What?!”

Leorio’s face was grim as he bore the wrath of Killua’s irritation. He sighed, lowering his gaze, a hand clenching at his side. “It’s time for your visit,” the doctor mumbled, clearly distressed.

Oh, did it bother Leorio to go along with this little farce? How sad for him. Killua scoffed, leaving his tray where it was as he stood up, shoving his hands into his pockets where no one would see his fingernails biting into his palm had enough to draw blood. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Leorio hesitated, his eyes soft and uncertain, before nodding once and leading Killua away.

xxx.

Leorio and Killua departed as one. Kurapika’s expression was stony as he continued to read. The book was not in English, Gon belatedly realized, staring at the familiar-looking letters without being able to recognize any words in the title.

“Killua’s getting a visitor?” Gon asked hesitantly after a drawn-out silence. Kurapika’s grey eyes flicked to him for a moment. The blond silently finished his page before slipping a floppy bookmark into the book and resting it, closed, on the tabletop.

“That would seem to be the case.”

Kurapika’s pale hands were still, resting atop the softcover, and Gon noticed that his nails were bitten to the quick, which was. Unusual.

“Did I do something?”

Grey eyes flicked up to him again, focused. Kurapika’s gaze pierced through him, reading past big bright eyes and a young face to the depth of him. For another long, heavy moment, Gon could only stare back, an itching starting under his skin that spread down his limbs. Then, Kurapika’s gaze broke, returning to his book.

“You were upset,” he shrugged complacently.

Gon mulled it over quickly, coming to a conclusion he didn’t like.

“...Did I hurt you?” he asked softly, biting his bottom lip.

Kurapika sighed, his fingers curling around the spine of the book. “No,” he replied at length, standing. He picked up his tray. “You didn’t.”

Gon watched him leave. For the first time since his arrival, he had a whole day stretching ahead of him to spend alone.

xxxi.

Illumi was already seated in the white interview room when Killua was escorted in. Was the room cold, or was that just the feeling of being in his elder brother’s presence once again? He was thankful, at least, and strangely, for Leorio’s intervention. Being here under the influence of those sleeping pills would’ve-- well, it wouldn’t have been pretty, certainly.

He had already hardened himself before entering the room, but was it possible to harden oneself enough against a person like Illumi? He gritted his teeth as he sat across from him, tightly twisting the fabric of his pockets between his fingers. His breath was silent, shallow where it was caged high in his chest, his skin prickling.

“Hello, Killua,” Illumi greeted in a soft, inflectionless voice, a soothing robot. “How are you?”

“Alive and well, apparently,” he replied through gritted teeth, his eyes narrowing on his elder brother.

Fathomless eyes stared back at him, black pits, giving away just as much as they always had. Nothing. Illumi blinked, and Killua glanced away quickly, staring instead at the ceiling times.

“You’ve been misbehaving,” Illumi continued in his monotone, his thin eyebrows arched high on his forehead. He always looked a little surprised, somehow, but Killua knew it was just his face and not any emotion Illumi was actually experiencing.

“So what else is new?” Killua snorted, rolling his eyes. Illumi hummed in response. He could feel his brother’s stare on him like a physical heat that joined the itch under his skin, flood through his body until he had to put effort into holding himself still.

He normally took pleasure in knowing that people couldn’t tell how he was feeling if he made any attempt to disguise it, but that particular skill had never worked on Illumi. Not once. The asshole knew exactly what effect he had on Killua, he had to.

Silence permeated the room, making the hum of the air system sound incredibly loud. Killua stubbornly refused to meet Illumi’s gaze, counting ceiling tiles.

“Mother and father are worried about you. They miss you and want you to come home.”

Killua rolled his eyes hard, digging his left thumb into his leg hard. The nail cut through his thin pocket, digging into skin. He felt wetness seep against his skin.

“Alluka misses you, too. He simply will not leave his room, now that you’re gone.”

Every muscle stiffened, his limbs trembling with readiness, a white hot anger exploding through him. His nostrils flared, head snapping down so that blue eyes could meet black, a fire leaping and roaring between them. He wasn’t cold, suddenly. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl.

“You take her name out of your fucking mouth,” Killua spat.

Illumi didn’t respond.

“Everyone wants you to come home. And you can,” Illumi added, “as soon as you want. You know what you have to do.”

Killua growled. Illumi never spoke to him in Japanese unless it was for the appearance of propriety (in certain settings) or, more frequently, because he was attempting to avoid listening ears.

Illumi knew that the thing he was saying was wrong, then. That it would get the family caught.

He fucking had to. Why else?

“The only way I’m going back home is in a body bag,” he bit back, grinning, his gaze as cold as Illumi’s.

“That would be unfortunate,” came Illumi’s patient, long-suffering reply. Fake. Killua’s eyes flicked to the long mirror on one wall- who was behind it watching, he wondered.

“Leaving you here is wasteful,” Illumi continued, unimpeded as always by Killua’s rebellion. “We are tools, Kil. Useful, fine-tuned tools. You are so much better than this.”

“I’m not a fucking tool!” Killua screamed in response, leaping to his feet. “And I’m definitely not a tool for you.”

“You are a tool,” the man replied evenly, entirely unaffected by Killua’s outburst. “I brought you up for it,”

“You mean you fucking abused me-”

“To be the best tool father could have, to be better than even I could be. I raised you to take over the business, Kil. You are the one who must do it.”

“Do it your own fucking self,” he hissed, hackles raised.

The door opened, but Illumi put his hand up before the guard could enter, a cool smile cracking his porcelain face. “We’re fine, thank you,” Illumi told the man in a voice soft and yet impossible to deny, and the stranger disappeared again.

His gaze returned to Killua, his eyes like black holes as they bore into the teenager.

“No.” Illumi’s brow creased in an expression Killua didn’t recognize, a spike of confusion spearing through him that only reinforced his defences. “That is your path. Mine is to support you.”

“If that’s the case you’re doing a really fucking terrible job,” Killua snarled, his lip raising on one side in a sneer that looked more angry than anything. Offended, maybe.

Illumi, as usual, neither responded to the switch back to English nor the haughty expression on Killua’s face. “You don’t belong here, Kil.”

“According to you I belong in a toolbox.”

“You’re one of us. We both know what you have done. You can’t erase yourself from existence and pretend that person wasn’t real. You are what you are.”

The heat of Killua’s anger was driven out by the ice cold that Illumi’s words created. Killua sank back into his chair, hardly cognisant of it, his eyes widening and his pupils dilating until the bright blue of his irises was a mere thin ring.

He went still, even his breathing so shallow someone might have thought him dead. Blood rushed through his veins, loud in his ears, blood dripped from his leg where he dug the rest of his nails in and blood dripped through his memory, falling from stained fingers, seeping down his skin to his elbows and drip-driping to the floor, a knife still in his hands and a shaking sack of red flesh moaning and begging at his feet.

“You always did excellent work, Kil. Always.”

A pink tongue flicked over the coppery crimson, cold eyes staring down. A cut tongue let a man drown in his own blood, if that thing was still a man. A still tongue never spoke a word, even as words of congratulations and encouragement floated around a buzzing head. A toast to Killua, the best among them. The strongest.

“I am so proud to be your big brother.”

Illumi stood. He crossed the room silently, his dark hair floating behind him as he shifted closer, making his movements seem almost inhuman, spirit-like. A cool, flawless hand settled on his shoulder and Killua felt his skin burn from the touch, even through his sleeve. “Stop this charade and come home, Kil. You’re wasted here.”

The hand lifted from him, and the moment the weight disappeared Killua felt himself start to shake. He dug his nails harder into his skin, knowing that Illumi could see, would notice, but he couldn’t hold himself still.

“Alluka is waiting. You know what you have to do.”

He didn’t turn to watch his brother leave, hearing nothing but the opening and closing of the door behind him.

Killua didn’t move from his chair until someone came to get him.

Xxxii.

Gon sat, as he had for almost an hour now, slouched in front of his bongos. He hadn’t seen Killua since breakfast, and neither he nor Kurapika had come into the music room since he’d arrived. He stared blankly at the carpet, his hands limp in his lap, listing. His back thumped lightly against the wall.

Somebody sat heavily beside him. They had a slim ankle, a sliver of pale, hairy leg visible under the slightly-too-short cuff of a pair of pinstripe pants. Leorio’s elbow accidentally bumped into him as the man settled, and Gon’s eyes cleared as he blinked and looked up at the man- though his sulking expression didn’t.

“Hi, Gon.”

“Leorio,” he greeted softly. He glanced the doctor over quickly before returning his gaze to his hands, his head sinking forward until his long chin touched his chest. The skin under the doctor’s eyes looked bruised and purple, and he shadowed his face with one of his long hands against the fluorescents’ glare.

He thought of his own pain.

“Can I ask you to translate something?” Leorio asked suddenly. He grabbed a pencil from behind his ear, flipping open a small notebook and squinting at the text. Gon, attention drawn by the movement, frowned at him quizzically.

“What?”

“What does ‘kigu’ mean?”

Gon scratched his cheek, his mouth slanting. It took him a moment to understand that Leorio had spoken Japanese, his vowels shaped all strange, sticky somehow. Like that English word, goo. “It’s a tool.”

“What kind of tool?”

Gon shook his head. “Just the word ‘tool’. It’s not specific.”

Leorio’s eyes widened. He simultaneously seemed to lose his color, and it deepened the purple bruises under his eyes. His jaw slowly descended. Then, all at once, it clicked closed. He leapt to his feet. “Thank you!” he shouted to Gon, a flail of limbs, and disappeared out the door.

Gon’s breath left him slowly. He sank against the wall again, drawing inward.

Xxxiii.

The door behind him slammed against the wall. Every one of Killua’s muscles went rigid at the sound, readiness zipping through him. A hand landed on his shoulder and in a moment he was out of his chair with his back bumping against the wall.

Leorio, winded, grabbed the back of Killua’s chair and leaned over it, panting. “Sorry,” the doctor huffed, “my mistake.” He waved a hand in front of his face as he caught his breath. “Hi. Will you come with me, please?”

Killua took a slow, silent step away from the wall, feeling his heartbeat pulse through his delicate throat. He watched Leorio’s long, knobby fingers loosen his tie and undo the top button, the therapist’s nose wrinkling in a vain attempt to stop his glasses from sliding. “You’re a mess lately, you know?” It left him softly, somehow before he had conceived of it.

Killua took another dizzy forward step when, instead of retaliating in anger to the insult, brown eyes rested on him with brimming concern. Leorio reached his hand towards Killua’s shoulder, but he waited for Killua to step into it before leading him away.

Killua hardly remembered the walk, staring ahead blankly as Leorio steered him to his office and shut the door. He was shuffled into the overstuffed leather chair and turned to face the door. Leorio left him there, watching it, before fetching the second chair. He wheeled it into Killua’s view- but without blocking the door.. Killua blinked once at him, slowly, blank-eyed. Tired.

Had he really grown dependent on that sleep?

As if that’s the reason.

Leorio sat. He looked a bit like a marionette, his long legs spearing out to either side, knees bent at sharp angles. He leaned his forearms on those knees, his hands lacing together between them. His tie draped over his fingers as he leaned forward, staring thoughtfully at the floor.

His head popped up suddenly, eyes narrowed in concentration and lips pushed forward, and the image was so funny it jarred something loose in Killua- a small, perplexed bend of his brow.

“I’m sorry.” Leorio said, definitively

Killua stared at him for several moments. Nothing else followed. “...about what?”

Leorio sighed. His head dipped down again, hiding his expression, and then up. Killua wheeled his chair back an inch, pushing his head against the cushioning. Weirdo.

“I’m sorry I had faith in your file instead of listening to what you were telling me. I’m sorry I discounted you, the person in front of me, over the determinations of strangers. I’m sorry I-” Leorio gnashed his teeth once, shame darkening his checks- “I’m sorry I facilitated your mistreatment.”

Killua slowly sank into his seat, eyes wide and unblinking. Was he dreaming?

Leorio’s hands parted, only to clap together. Then he threw himself dramatically backwards into his chair, running his fingers through his messy, dark hair. “I should have listened.” He shook his head and tsk tsked himself for a self-defeating moment before kicking his feet forward to launch back into his previous pose, a little more in Killua’s space then a moment ago.

“I’m ready to listen now. And I can’t overturn your diagnosis- but in here, just the two of us, I can help you with what you’re actually suffering from.”

“Yeah?” Killua asked, and his usual spunk was faded and worn, an exhausted exhale. “And what am I suffering from?”

Leorio met his eyes directly, his mouth pressed in a grim line. His shoulders dropped just a little further, made the awkward, gangly man just a little shorter. “Abuse.”

Silence. Killua’s ears buzzed. He swayed in his chair. His hands came out of his pockets so that he could wrap his arms around himself, his nails leaving a smear of red on the chair’s leather. He blinked- once, twice, and then a flurry- and then his face was wet. He lowered his head to drag his sleeve across his eyes.

A knobby hand came into view. It descended slowly onto his knee, giving him plenty of time to avoid ti. The wheels of Leorio’s chair scraped across the carpet. Leorio murmured soothingly as he edged closer. He rested a careful hand against the back of Killua’s neck and drew him gently forward until his forehead bumped into the doctor’s fuzzy sweater vest.

“I know,” Leorio breathed above his ear, a soft and familiar pain in his voice, “it always hurts to hear it out loud for the first time.”

His memory got a little strange after that, but Killua came out the other side of half an hour feeling clean in the way that you felt after walking through a rainstorm. He sat up in his chair completely, stretching his spine and sighing as he cracked his neck.

Leorio kicked his feet against the carpet until he was behind his desk again. While fishing through his desk, he peeked at Killua. “Hey, you want to do something fun.”

Killua scoffed, sliding back into comfortable. “Obviously, but I doubt you have anything that can interest me up your sleeve, old man.”

Leorio’s grin pretty clearly meant ‘we’ll see about that,’ and it had Killua sitting forward, keen. Leorio slapped a navy blue folder on top of his desk, and held up his metal trashcan with a gleeful grin. “Wanna burn your file?”

“YES!” Killua leapt to his feet with an excited smile.

Xxxiv.

Gon shifted around in the blue bean bag chair, feeling the individual granules roll against his back. He fell in and out of sleep, ensconced in the familiar smell, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes periodically.

Had he ruined this, too?

Was it cheating to hide here? Would it force Killua to interact with him or lose one of his primary comforts? His gaze drifted guiltily through the doorway and met with mustard corduroys. He bit his lip, amber eyes flicking up, making no effort to disguise his shiny, splotchy face.

Gon watched the shifting waves of Killua’s shirt as the young man took a deep breath in, watched a pale finger tick against the stick of an inexplicable lollipop as Bisky strolled past with her ring of keys and a warning eyebrow. He scoffed as he came closer, scratching his white hair and waggling the lollipop at Gon where it hung between his fingers. “Move over you’re taking up the whole chair.”

Staring up at him in wonder, Gon shoved his weight into the chair at an angle so that the beads tumbled sideways, before wiggling his hips until he had reasonably shifted half of the chair. Killua’s hand came up to jam the lollipop into his mouth, effectively hiding his face from Gon for a moment, but when he took the controller from Bisky and sat down his cheeks were significantly pinker than before.

Killua leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, arched towards the tv as he navigated the game menu. Gon’s eyes followed him, his nails clicking together as he picked at his cuticles. Killua reached behind him without looking to swat Gon’s hands. Gon blinked, his fingers unbending to follow the touch. He pulled his hands apart and lowered them to his knees.

For a while neither said anything, Gon blinking at a familiar screen. Killua zipped through the oldest portions of his minecraft builds before going through the new portions more slowly, his eyes narrowed in focus. But then he sat up suddenly, rolling his shoulders back, and twisted to look at Gon over his shoulder. His ears were quite red.

“You’re staring.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d talk to me again,” he confessed quietly, looking through stuck-together lashes.

Killua’s jaw ticked. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I thought I ruined it,” he whined, his voice cracking in the middle of his words in a way he hadn’t done in years. “I ruin everything.”

Killua blinked at him. His face did something complicated Gon couldn’t quite decipher, but among the flashing expressions he managed at least to recognize confusion, understanding, regret.

Killua turned forward again but threw his weight back so that they were now touching shoulder to knee. “Don’t be stupid, Gon,” he said a little too loudly, a strange smile bending his cheek, “not everything’s about you.”

A wave of feeling crashed into Gon. He twisted onto his side, tucking his head against the crook of Killua’s neck and throwing an arm around his waist, legs curling up between them. He hiccuped, once, twice, then whimpered- and then it broke out of him entirely and he started to cry. He hugged Killua’s waist to him, pressing his head hard into the boy’s ribs, but Killua didn’t complain, he just lifted his arms and played with his wrists resting on Gon’s shoulders.

A while after he had quieted down, breathing in time with Killua, blinking drowsily against Killua’s sticky throat, Killua murmured: “feel better?”

Gon rolled onto his back, hugging his arms to him as he frowned at the ceiling. “Sorry…” he mumbled, biting his lip.

“Don’t worry about it,” Killua scoffed. His head rolled to the side, and he met Gon’s eye with a self-deprecating smirk. “I did it in front of Leorio, so mine was obviously more embarrassing.”

Gon laughed wetly. He turned his head towards Killua, inching forward so that their foreheads met. They smiled at each other, Killua’s face a blur of features through Gon’s wet eyes. He blinked; Killua cleared, and his expression grew serious. Bright eyes focused studiously on Gon’s face, analyzing, puzzling… then he sighed and turned his head, tapping the game controller against his leg.

“I abandoned my sister,” Killua whispered in a strangled breath, so softly Gon wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear it at all. He rolled his body closer to Killua’s again, resting a hand against Killua’s arm, gently rubbing his thumb against the socket of his shoulder.

He bit back the unknowing, automatic denial that rose to his lips, and replaced it with “I think I killed Kite.”

He would never know for sure, either way. No one would.

Killua was silent for a few moments. Then he shrugged, snorted, and relaxed further into the beanbag, kicking a foot up so that it rested against Gon’s leg. “Oh,” he said dismissively, clicking his tongue against the room of his mouth. “I’ve done worse than that.”

Xxxv.

Killua woke up with a satisfying snap the next morning. He kicked his feet up, slung on his most comfortable shorts and his favorite t-shirt, and went to the door. He paused momentarily, narrowing his eyes at the clock he could just make out from the window.

He’d promised Leorio no out-of-hours excursions with Gon. Fine. He could do that. Easy. Smirking to himself, Killua flicked a paperclip between his fingers and let himself out. He glanced once at the hallway camera with a wink, silently slipping further away. He unlocked a different door, slipped inside and shut it behind him with a deliberate, cheeky click.

Gon’s tawny eyes blinked up at him, dark with the sun behind him, halfway through a shoulder stretch that had his arm tucked behind his head.

Killua brazenly walked closer, stopping when his shins bumped into Gon’s bedspread, standing between Gon’s knees.

“You’re awake,” Gon asked him incredulously.

Killua harrumphed, shoving his hands into his pockets with a pout. And he’d been so suave, too! But a smile cracked on one side. “I’m awake.”

“And here,” Gon mumbled.

“And here,” he repeated, his head bobbing, impatient, “and aware, yes, with all my faculties. I promised Leorio I wouldn’t let you out and wander around and, look-” he gestured at the room. “Exactly where we’re supposed to be. In a dorm room with the door closed.”

Gon was grinning up at him. He appeared to be getting the idea, his broad hands coming first to rest on Killua’s waist before slowly slipping down to his hips. His eyes sparked with mirth, molten gold. “Yep,” he chirped, “seems right to me.”

“Yeah,” Killua snorted, amused, amazed. He pressed his fingers against Gon’s sternum, pushing him backwards to make room for himself- leaning one knee on the bed before climbing into his lap outright. Gon blinked at him rapidly, blushing even under his tan, “I thought so too. You wanna-”

“Yeah,” he breathed, elated. “I do.”

Gon’s arms wrapped around his waist, squeezing him closer. Their lips met.