Chapter Text
For the first year or so, Killua woke suddenly in cold sweats, panicked.
Eyes wild and pupils dilated, breath shuddering in the night of some ungodly hour; a singular thought treading a deep groove into his mind on loop, seizing his heart and constricting his lungs, asking the same question: What if? What if? What if—?
That’s how Alluka would find him.
First, she would call out to him in the darkness, voice light and gentle as a tentative touch. It was how he had taught her—to approach from a distance when he was like this. Just in case.
“Nii-chan?” she’d say from across the room because she was never too far from him, especially in the beginning. Then: “Killua?” Nanika would come out to check, too.
“It’s okay, Nanika,” he’d reply, between ragged breaths. “You can go back to sleep.”
In their initial months traveling together, Alluka became adept at crossing the room with little to no light to guide her. The weight of her sinking onto the bedside to sit—her cool hands on his feverish cheeks, wiping away the tears, tracing soothing patterns onto his forehead like a spell, her fingers slotting comfortably between his calloused ones—always helped ease his heart a little after these episodes of tortured sleep.
“Don’t worry, nii-chan.” Her soft words, repeated like a mantra, he internalized. “He’s okay.”
Sometimes he’d nod, slowly accepting her affirmations until Alluka could no longer hold back her yawns and he’d gently order her back to her own bed so they could both drift off. Other times, after he was sure she was asleep, he would break down in silence, unable to stop the emotions from pouring through the crack in his heart that he patched up night after night since—
Gon.
Killua had promised himself that he’d always protect him. He had been more than ready to kill for him at Heavens Arena, andhad barely let him out of his sight when he’d lost his Nen for only a month. When he revisited his memories of their time together, Killua had to remind himself that he had literally stalked Gon on his date with Palm—for reasons that were, at the time, vexing but in hindsight crystal-clear—because he had been so afraid to lose him.
And where had they ended up? Gon not simply waiting out a countdown but cut-off from Nen entirely, maybe forever. With a parting that felt more like a mourning. To climb the World Tree. To explore unknown lands and face unpredictable enemies.
Without Killua by his side. Without Gon by his.
In all the torture and training he had endured under the Zoldyck name, Killua had never felt a pain so acute as his heart being cleaved in two when they split; a sensation he had never experienced before, this ceaseless, aching hollowness in his chest. That day, he hadn’t realized he was clutching his chest until Alluka had quietly asked if he was alright.
Killua trusted Gon. His friend was a more-than formidable opponent. He knew how to rally allies and win over foes. Find ingenious ways to surmount seemingly unsolvable obstacles with sheer determination and that impressively dense, always stubborn mind of his.
He’ll be fine, Killua would tell himself as he laid down for sleep each night, half-prayer and half-bedtime tale to soothe his troubled mind in a futile attempt to make it through the night without fear or guilt throttling him awake.
(For the first year, even though he knew that wasn’t the case whatsoever, it felt like he had one of Illumi’s needles lodged in his brain again. On sullen nights, looking up at the stars, sometimes he argued with himself about which felt worse.)
Eventually, his night terrors subsided—along with the tears—to rare random nights that no longer woke Alluka from her slumber. He no longer shot up with loud, desperate gasps but awoke suddenly staring at the ceiling feeling strangely lost. Eventually, the ache became just another class in enduring pain; a technique Killua was intimately familiar with being raised in a family of assassins.
And Gon would persevere as he always had. Nothing could take him out so easily, Killua knew—it had already been ten years since they’d last seen each other, at the base of the World Tree … when they were fourteen.
How exactly? Killua wish he knew, but the math added up something like this:
One year became three.
Suddenly five and eight came and went.
Then before either of them knew it, a decade waited for them on the horizon.
It seemed time had a way of sneaking up on them better than any hunter Killua had ever encountered.
Gon was still alive, last Killua had heard … last week, when Kite called with a question about Nanika and the Dark Continent. Kite had become one of the select few he trusted with Alluka’s secret.
A lot had changed in many ways during their time apart.
Kite had ceased asking regularly, in their own way, if everything was okay between him and Gon for some years now. But about twice a year they teased out the question just to gauge if anything had changed.
They all did: Bisky, Palm, Leorio, Ikalgo, Knuckle. Even Morel and Knov, on occasion.
Killua didn’t talk to Kurapika often due to the Kurta's work and constant exhaustion, but the last time they spoke earlier in the year, it seemed like Kurapika felt like he was getting close to recovering all the stolen eyes of his people. Both of them knew they didn’t need to talk about the darkness Kurapika had encountered and committed on his warpath of righteous vengeance to sooth his endless grief; how it stained and claimed him.
Yet despite being strung between his death-pact Nen condition and fathomless mourning, even Kurapika had had the presence of mind to inquire about the years-long distance between Killua and Gon that he'd mainly hear about through Leorio. (Kurapika had gotten much more to the point in the years he’d been moving through Underground and black market spaces.)
It wasn’t that he and Gon were … avoiding each other; the timing just never worked out.
Killua found they were always in each other’s orbit but out of sync. Always two steps ahead or behind, it seemed. Leorio would call in a favor and they’d miss each other by a day; not to mention their attempts to see each other in the first few years falling apart before they slowly stopped trying all together.
Biscuit, in her travels hunting gemstones, would cross paths with them separately, pick up wherever they needed training most, and relay short updates about each other with a frustrated scowl.
“Why don’t you just call each other?” she’d huff. “I didn’t go through fifty years of Nen training to become two little boys’ personal message service.”
And it’s not like they didn’t try.
One would work up the courage to call the other—which was ludicrous to Killua seeing as they had fought to the death side-by-side so many times—and the line would ring, and ring, and ring; neither ever leaving a voicemail. Killua never purposefully missed Gon’s calls and he sincerely didn’t think Gon intentionally avoided his either. They truly were … just out of step and still too school-boy shy about facing each other after Gon’s cruel words before his fight with Pitou, then Killua, still shattered, doing everything in his power to make sure he lived—and, at least for Killua, realizing deeper unrequited feelings in the aftermath.
“What you two have takes nurturing. Gentle hands, together, coaxing it to grow strong and true,” Canary had said, in one of the many calls they shared ever since giving true friendship a try. “Neither of you are one to give up on the other.” She always had a sense of what was bothering Killua without him having to say a word.
Eventually, he or Gon would always get back to each other. A reply, in email or text—never a call-back; one never quite ready when the other was, it seemed.
(Knuckle once told Killua that watching their relationship was like being on the sidelines of a dodgeball game where, between two of the strongest fighters he’s ever seen, neither opponent could aim or hit the other directly ... that is impressive and mind-boggling as it was tiresome to witness.)
Hey! I’m sorry I missed your call. I haven’t had cell service because …
or,
It’s a funny story, actually! I couldn't answer my phone then because …
—always ending with a promise (a genuine yearning) to see each other, of well wishes, of asking after each other’s loved ones. Maybe with a photo attached that reminded one of the other, of simpler times. Quiet admissions that still, after all this time, they thought of each other actively and often.
According to Palm—who was seven years into a loving relationship at this point—it was like being in a long-distance situationship where you’re both in love but not together and you’re afraid to say what’s on your mind because no words can really express what’s in your heart. It’s all a very vulnerable (messy and precise, like working with knives) business, confessing, she says; it takes a different sort of strength to build up to it, and it was simply not yet a muscle that either boy had had much of a chance to exercise, compared to all their very well-trained ones. Feelings require more of an… invisible strength, Palm reminded Killua gently.
(They had grown close over time, and on the rare occasions he was feeling deeply vulnerable and unsure and seeking some kind of gentle reassurance, Killua, contemplative, would momentarily address her as nee-san in conversation when they were alone in-person or on the phone.)
“Don’t worry about you and Gon. It’ll work out—one or both of you will figure it out, eventually. My guess is sooner than later,” Palm said a few months prior, with a wink in her voice. “Trust me. I’m clairvoyant.”
“Don’t try to trick me,” Killua responded, as deadpan and agitated as he was fond. “You and I both know you can only see the present and seconds into the past.”
Palm chuckled. “Who says? I have my ways of telling these things.”
“Did you develop a new ability with your crystal ball?”
“I’ll never tell, Kil-kun!” Palm teased.
Regardless, it felt like the world conspired to keep him and Gon apart. Like their meeting at the Hunter Exam was a fluke from the start and not one that would be allowed to happen again. A glitch in the system. A happy accident with a foregone conclusion. A direct consequence of foolishly, defiantly, flying too close to the sun.
And Killua didn’t like the feeling of sitting still, of waiting without end, so he moved on, or tried to at least.
Starting with training Alluka into near-pro-level hunter shape. (He wanted to leave it up to her to decide if she wanted to take the exam one day.) Now she had a prowess and abilities outside of Nanika's that made him proud and slightly less concerned to let her, little by little, out of his sight for longer periods of time.
It was weird raising his younger sister when they were technically only a year apart. But she had a lot to catch up on outside that prison their family locked her in, and he in contrast had seen and experienced maybe too much of the world for his age; in the beginning he felt thirty years older than her rather than just shy thirteen months. Now at twenty-three (and Killua at twenty-four, respectively), Alluka was of an age that required much more freedom from an overprotective older brother. He had seen her eyes wander to the girls and boys they passed wherever they went on their travels.
… So, to speed up that process, Alluka thought it would help if Killua started dating, too.
Despite being trapped in an underground bunker for a good portion of her life and being alone before Killua freed her, Alluka was without a doubt of Zoldyck blood. Her powers of perception were remarkable—and both endlessly annoying and equally endearing, from a sibling point of view. She knew just what irked Killua as much as what interested him.
“He seems cute.”
“Alluka.”
“What?” she said, looking slyly away, sipping at her drink through a straw, playfully ignorant to the warning in his voice.
A few minutes later: “She seems like she could be your type.”
“Alluka ...”
“What about that person? They look—”
“Alluka.”
“Yes, nii-chan?”
Dinner finished, the siblings sat cozily across from each other in a windowed booth seat, slowly making their way through their favorite meal of the day: dessert.
Killua watched Alluka's petal-blue gaze roam across the faces of passersby as they walked past the restaurant window, and felt a pang of pride at how brightly her eyes took in the world around them. She had grown tall and strong, hovering an inch or two below six foot, but lean and quick—and when she moved or fought, her long, choppy hair danced; which she had chosen to put up in a ponytail. Pink and green were still her favorite colors which she wore often, but today she opted for a red shirt with her signature frowny face on the front—the same that was carved into the beads that still hung near her bangs—and currently matched her expression at her beloved older brother's demand.
“I want to talk to Nanika,” Killua complained gruffly, teasing in his bratty way. “At least I know they won’t terrorize me.”
Alluka sulked, sticking her tongue out. A harmless threat and request, they both knew—at this point, they regarded Nanika as her twin. “Too bad. They’re asleep.”
Killua huffed theatrically and moved a fry around his plate before eating it like a grumpy child. He frowned, chewing petulantly.
She doesn’t need to know about my hook-ups.
“Besides, I already know about your hook-ups."
Killia froze. Had she heard that? “Alluka-chan,” he asked sweetly, pausing to process if she did or did not just read his thoughts, adding the honorific to cover his concern. It’d become a pain, if so, he considered. Then again, he thought she'd probably promise to not read his thoughts and he trusted implicitly that she would keep her word. So, maybe not that bad, he concluded. “Have you been secretly developing your Nen to somehow become a mind reader?”
Alluka shook her head with a dry expression. “Don’t try to act sly, nii-chan. I don’t need Nen to see the obvious. You come home late, smelling of other people. Say it’s training yet I never see any big bruises. Just tiny ones, on your neck and collarbone or behind your ear—and probably other places, too. When you return, you sleep the soundest on those nights.” She smirked at the high blush radiating off Killua’s face. “You’re the one who trained me. Am I wrong, nii-chan?”
Killua crossed his arms, looking away with a petulant scowl. “It’s not like I was trying to hide it from you, anyway.”
The hook-ups weren’t anything special anyway, but he definitely wasn’t going to share that with Alluka either.
“They probably weren’t that special anyway.”
A vein throbbed on Killua’s forehead and Alluka laughed.
“Calm down, nii-chan. I can’t read your mind like that. It’s just, you pride yourself on being so unknowable and so mysterious, but we’ve been traveling together for the last ten years. You’d think I’d figure you out, at least a little bit, in that time. You do it to me all the time.”
“And I’m just saying,” she continued, “if you were spending sexy time with people you considered worth your time, I probably would have heard about or met them at some point. Then I would finally have something to say to all those randos—Do you know how many people come up to me asking if you’re single?”
“W-What?!”
(Suddenly, Killua could hear Leorio’s voice from a conversation years ago: "Don’t be so surprised, Killua-kun. You’ve grown to be quite the looker! You’re as tall as me, maybe going to be even taller, and—not to be insensitive to how literal this sounds—have that whole tortured soul thing going for you. Chicks, dudes, everyone loves some calm and cool, yet dangerous vibes. You just seem very … capable, is what I’m saying. In many ways. You’re probably even more powerful than that creep Hisoka now. Make it work for you! If you want, that is. Sex can be cathartic—the build-up, the release. Might even help you relax for, uh, maybe a second knowing you."
Killua couldn’t deny he had gotten taller and filled out over the years. His voice had deepened and roughened slightly as he packed on more hard, lithe muscle through the years and had grown two inches above Leorio’s six-foot-three height. He had continued pushing his body, mind, and aura to the absolute limit with impressive results, mastering every technique—he had even figured out a way to perform En in his sleep and keep his electricity flowing at max capacity no matter how much he expended in a fight—all in the name of protecting his sister from their family, especially Illumi. So, he had let his silver hair get a little shaggier to slightly frame his matured, sharpened face and kept his style simple and relaxed so he didn’t have to think about it when he trained or fought.
He wasn’t … unaware that he was considered attractive—plenty of people had told him in one way or another over the years, and he wasn’t dense—plus, he had no problem sleeping with practically anybody he wanted, if he so chose. It was just that he wasn’t concerned about his looks. He had had other things to worry about.
Not that he didn’t take Leorio’s advice and cobble together some form of a sex life as he got older, after years of training his sister, and once he felt comfortable leaving her alone for an hour or two at a time.
Speaking of … )
When Killua surfaced from his thoughts, Alluka was still talking.
“—And I have to keep telling them you’re engaged!”
“Eh?” Killua exclaimed, immediately scandalized. “That’s nonsense! You know I’m not engaged, Alluka.”
“Are you sure?” Alluka asked with a sly smile. “Isn’t his name written in the stars or something? Isn’t that why you’re always looking up at them?”
Killua only sipped his chocolate milkshake in response, looking down. Alluka’s eyes softened. She could see she was making his heart ache, so she changed the subject.
“So, who are these lucky strangers I don't hear anything about?”
Killua sighed, humoring her. “Just people. When we move through new towns. Nothing special, as you presumed.”
“Nii-chan, your life is so sad. You trained me well so I’m more than skilled enough to protect myself and Nanika. Why can’t you let yourself be in love?” She frowned at Killua’s frown, his even heavier sigh.
“It takes at least two for that, Allu-chan. He chuckled when Alluka puffed her cheeks cutely.
“But I can’t date until you allow me to,” she said, pouting.
Killua’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Who told you that? You can go on a date whenever you want.”
Alluka practically jumped out of her seat.
“What? I can?” Scratching her head thoughtfully, she sat back down, admitting, “I think it got into my head that I had to ask permission after all these years of not really being allowed to leave your sight.”
“Ah, yeah, that makes sense,” Killua agreed, nodding. “But I think you’ve more than earned time to yourself. So long as Nanika knows the rules and doesn’t get you two in trouble.”
Alluka sighed, exasperated. “Nanika knows the rules, nii-chan. No requests, blah blah blah.”
Killua shrugged. “Okay, then I trust you to start dating whenever. But if it starts getting serious—”
“You’ll be the first to know! Yes, of course, I promise.” She was buzzing with excitement.
“Like you said—you’re smart, have trained, and are more than capable. I’m not our father and we’re practically the same age. I neither can or want to stop you from living your life. Besides, I see you looking at people all the time.” Killua made his signature cat face. “... And I see them looking back.”
Alluka blushed, steam pouring from the top of her head. “Mind your business!”
Killua put up his hands in mock surrender, endeared by her sudden bashfulness.
“You’re the one who started it. Calling me out about my night activities.” His expression suddenly sharpened. “But let me remind you if something becomes serious between you and someone else, I better get to meet them so I can interrogate them within an inch of their life and—”
“Got it. Understood, nii-chan. Loud and clear,” Alluka interrupted with a nervous giggle, trying to calm the intense aura Killua had started emitting. “Let’s move on, shall we?”
Killua shrugged, returning to his milkshake as if nothing had happened and he hadn’t plunged the entire restaurant into overwhelming unease.
“Sure," he said, noisily sipping the dregs of his milky chocolate. "What else do you want to talk about?”
“What are you wearing to Palm’s wedding?”
That certainly diverted his attention. Killua choked on his drink.
“EHHH? Palm’s getting MARRIED?!”
He knew she was engaged—but still!
Alluka looked unimpressed, sipping on the last of her fruit slushy. “Honestly, nii-chan. You need to get better about checking your email—or at least stop avoiding it, thinking you'll see a message from him. I thought you knew already!”
Palm’s cryptic comment to him the last time they spoke suddenly made much more sense. “When is it?”
“A couple months from now.”
“Okay, so there’s still time,” Killua sighed in relief. He had time to prepare for a sudden ten-year reunion. He ignored the sudden thudding in his heart, squinting at his sister. “Wait, what are you going to wear?” I don't want to talk about it. Not now.
Alluka grinned. “It’s a surprise.” That's alright, we don't have to.
Killua's grin softened for a moment—she had been right, they did practically read each other's mind—before crossing his arms in playful protest.
“Allukaaa.”
It was, after all, his brotherly duty to make a big deal because she loved to make her special occasion outfits a big deal.
“I’m not telling!”
“Nanika will tell me.”
“Not-uh! They’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
“Secrecy, huh? What do you think secrecy’s worth to Nan-chan?” Killua teased, eyebrows raised with haughty big-brotherness. Neither brought up the topic of the wedding itself again. What it meant. Who would be there. “Two slices of chocolate cake? Three?”
“They’d never sell me out!”
Killua grinned widely. “We’ll see!”
And they continued that way, prattling on fondly and laughing into the night as Killua did an impressive job of pretending he wasn’t freaking out.
(But Alluka knew he was. She always knew, so she just played along, too.)