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“Do you think it’s going to work?”
Killua is standing over an old and detailed map of the region surrounding the castle. On it, little wooden tokens represent the forces Kurapika might be able to assemble, and those which he is assuming may come raining down upon them should his family decide to make this a war. He doubts it. It’s not exactly the Iga way, and certainly not that of the Zoldycks. But Kurapika speaks in tactics and however wily they may be they tend to include regiments and Killua doesn’t know how to tell him that this won’t work so he’s going through the motions anyway as if it’ll make a difference. Gon is watching him carefully in the candle light and Killua straightens. He doesn’t say anything, but Gon nods.
“Ah. Alright then.” He steps forward, and his dark scarred fingers trail heavily over the hair thin twists and curls of the map’s mountains. They look out of place, there. Even upon his sword: his hands were made for wood and fur and leather, soil and trees. Not for these convoluted things worked so well from twisted metal. Killua frowns down at the map. The Suzuka mountains were perfect as a frame for the Iga-Ryu's little basin of exiles and killers, and, in theory, a castle at their feet should be easily defensible. That would be true, perhaps, if they were facing pitched battle and cavalry, but they’re not. This is guerrila warfare and foothills lend themselves to it. Kurapika’s castle, for all its ingenuity, is not a serious challenge to one such as he and his. And to make it so would be the work of a lifetime, not an evening’s speculation.
“What do you want to be in your next life?” Killua jumps, startled from his reverie, and very nearly knocks his head against the low ceiling of Kurapika’s war room. As it is, he barely avoids a candle ensconced in the wall. Gon’s mouth quirks upwards in a smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Killua scowls. “You didn’t.” Gon shrugs, smile still lying easy on his lips, lifting his hand from the map. They’d spent hours discussing the positioning of their troops, right up until the Daimyo retired and left them, there. It was an extraordinarily trusting and extraordinarily foolish thing to do. Killua could only assume that Kurapika’s faith in Gon’s ability to control him, and in his loyalty, was greater than he had previously thought. He could not say the same: Kurapika’s decision to lay his faith in Hisoka, for one, had had his senses a little more alert ever since the smell of chrysanthenums had made it into the back of his throat. Why Hisoka insisted on mixing and wearing so pungent a perfume he had no idea: though he supposed that like his hair it provided an additional challenge to going undetected in their work. He wrinkled his nose. He didn’t much like the idea of their being anything alike.
“So?” Killua blinks, and wonders when exactly Gon got that close. He should have noticed and he didn’t and apart from his sister there’s no one in the world that he’d allow past his defenses. Gon chuckles, tilting his head a little. His hand moves at his side and then falls again, and he rubs the folds of his hakama instead. “You must be tired.”
Killua shrugs. “Not really. And I don’t believe in that stuff.”
Gon hums. “No, I know. But if you did.”
Killua leans back against the cool stone wall: Kurapika’s castle is built in layers, the outermost walls are stone, the extremities of the castle are wooden screens and corridors, and at its heart, again, more stone, hidden and buried and easily defended. “Why do you want to know?”
“We might be dead tomorrow.” Gon’s smile doesn’t falter. Killua catches his breath. “Right?” Gon meets his eyes. The candle light flickers in them, picking out flecks of bronze and gold, and Killua looks away. “So I want to know. What would you want to be?”
Killua purses his lips, shifting from one foot to another as if he needs to. “I don’t know. What about you?”
Gon’s smile widens. “I’d want to be me. And meet you again.”
Killua stares. He wants to say that that’s stupid, and naive, and that all he’s ever brought down on Gon is death and blood and pain and that’s all that he ever will do because it’s all he knows but he sort of can’t because the candle light is soft and the air is warm and Gon is smiling at him like they’re not considering their bloody ends and he just doesn’t know what to do with that. But he’s smiling, anyway. He slumps away from the wall and gently, gently, punches Gon’s shoulder, snorting. “Idiot.”
Gon’s beam curls into a grin. “You’re blushing.”
Killua flinches and starts to walk away. “I am not.” Gon follows him, and they make an odd pair: lithe, cat like assassin wrapped in the dark blue cloth of his trade followed by a lumbering, armoured samurai, and neither of them making a sound on the Daimyo’s precious floor.
“You are! The great assassin, Killua Zoldyck. You’re pink!” The corridors are dark and quiet, the candles have been put out to protect the castle from fire. Neither Killua nor Gon give the shadows any pause.
“Did you age at all since we met, moron? We’re not children!”
Gon pouts, walking backwards to peer, grinning, into Killua’s face, even as he makes a point of not meeting his gaze. “But you’re still so cute!” Killua can feel his flush getting deeper and his scowl grows with it because really, how did he not learn how to deal with this? It was ridiculous, if he could impersonate an actor and a minstrel and a prostitute then surely he could handle a childish compliment or two delivered with so little tact.
“You would not say that if you knew how many I’d killed.” The words just sort of slip out, and he’s not sure exactly how and he knows it isn’t the time or the place and the moonlight falls through a crack in a door they’re passing in time for him to catch the way that Gon’s expression flickers and now he really can’t meet his gaze and he walks a little faster. Gon huffs, increasing his pace to keep up.
“Hey! Have a little sympathy for those of us in armour.”
Killua’s shoulders are raised and he makes an effort to let them drop because he’s been trained in the arts of deceit since he first learnt to speak and he will not let something as crude as body language give him away. “You were managing just fine before.”
“Before you were walking at the speed of a normal person.”
Killua can feel his mouth curving down and sort of thinks he might be the one acting like a child and doesn’t really care because he might also be dead or screaming tomorrow and so it doesn’t matter much. “I’m not a normal person.”
“I know that.” A big, warm hand grabs his arm and he didn’t avoid it and he doesn’t know why but it shouldn’t have been so easy and now he’s stopping and Gon’s stepping closer, too close, again. The corridor smells of wood and candle wax and stone and it’s sort of irrelevant because there’s also Gon: and he’s grass and dirt and leather and sweat and hay and salt and as intoxicating as he ever was. “Killua, did I offend you?” He’s frowning, just a little, and his smile is gone now and Killua isn’t sure whether he’s glad about that or not. “I was just teasing.”
Killua shakes his head because he knows that and this isn’t important and he’s not a child. “It’s nothing, Gon. I’m fine.”
“No you’re not.” Gon sounds frustrated, and his hand is still wrapped around Killua’s upper arm and it nearly encompasses the circumference of it and Killua sort of keeps forgetting how big his friend is, these days, and he shouldn’t be because it’s part of how he should be measuring him as a threat and he isn’t because he can’t and he doesn’t know why. “We haven’t had a chance to.” He pauses, looking to the right at the same time that Killua does. A young girl silently trips past, wide eyed, and the nightingale floor warbles softly under her bare feet. Gon’s grip relaxes on his arm, just a little, but he doesn’t let go. When she’s gone, he lifts a hand, pauses, frowns, and then presses it against Killua’s cheek. Killua wants to lean away and doesn’t because his curiosity is getting the better of him and he’d deny it under torture but at some point his heart made its way into his throat and is thudding there, heavy. Gon’s face is half veiled in shadows, sketched out in the moonlight, and the silk of his hakama and the glaze of his armour gleam silver there. “You’ve changed so much.”
Killua flushes and looks away and thinks about waking at night because he’s drowning in blood and then tries not to and fails. He mutters, gruffly. “You haven’t.”
Gon hums. His hand is hot and rough and dry on Killua’s cheek but it doesn’t move. “But I have, too. ” Killua thinks about their brief clash outside the castle and can’t find it in himself to disagree. There’s still the child he met before, here, but there’s more of him, now, and he’s older and wiser in ways he hasn’t mapped, yet. Gon continues, and his voice is low and warm. “And you haven’t changed, in some ways.” That catches his attention, and he glances up, raising an eyebrow. Gon smiles at him, the curve of his lips barely perceptible in the darkness, and his big rough thumb strokes his cheekbone, once, gently. “You still blush when I smile.”
Killua steps back. Not because he wants to, persay, but because if this continues his heart may very well escape from his mouth, figuratively or otherwise, and he’s not ready for that, yet. He slips his hands into his pockets, which is a bad habit no amount of beating quite managed to shake, and looks down the curve of Kurapika’s circular corridor. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I could say the same to you of me.”
Killua purses his lips, grits his teeth, presses his palms flat against his thighs in the cotton depths of his pockets over little blades hidden there. “It’s not the same.”
“How do you know?” Gon hasn’t moved, but Killua can feel the weight of his eyes upon him and can’t really stand to meet them, now, because there’s blood and bruises and bones flickering behind his eyes and he doesn’t know how to put that into words. And there’s an itch on his back over a scar that is a word and he’s trying not think about it. So instead he takes the easy road.
“I chose this.”
“No you didn’t.” Gon’s tone is sure and firm and quiet. If he was surprised, he doesn't give it a moment’s thought. Killua knows that if he concentrates he’ll hear the castle residents sleeping in their chambers, but he doesn’t because all of him is focused on Gon and the way that his armour has yet to make a sound because he hasn’t actually so much as shifted in his place. He forcibly stops himself from clenching his fists and curls his toes instead.
“Yes I did. I swore an oath to obey them, and to kill and not to question, and not to leave. And I have broken that oath now, but I held it for years. I have killed hundreds of people and most of them were innocent and I did not always do it quickly. What does your honour make of that?” Gon’s shaking his head even as Killua speaks, hissing the words like venom across the dusty air between them, and he doesn't know why he’s trying so hard to push him away but he is and he can’t stop.
“If you wanted those things then both Kurapika and I would already be dead. This was never a choice and you know that I know that.”
“It was after you.” Killua doesn’t raise his voice, now, but he thinks if he’d been a remotely normal person he might have done and instead he spins on the balls of his feet and starts walking, quickly, towards his room, because he won’t run, even from Gon. He follows. He’d expected that. He gets to his room, curling his fingers around the smooth dry wood of his door frame and slipping it to the side: it moves easily with a sigh and he turns, ready to close it, but Gon’s already got one big hand on the screen and he frowns but steps back and lets him in before shutting it, checking the corridor on instinct before he does. It’s empty and quiet and he doesn’t trust how still the shadows are. But he’s distracted, so he lets it go.
Which is when Gon draws a dagger from his sleeve that Killua somehow hadn’t noticed despite their repeated proximity and goes to strike him. He blocks it on instinct and he can feel himself detaching from his body when he does because this wasn’t what he was expecting and it can’t actually be happening and so he won’t think about it, he’ll just act, he’s good at that. And his hand clenches around Gon’s wrist hard enough to splinter the bone and it’s at about the same time that he draws another dagger in his free, weaker hand, and uses it to rip open the cloth across Killua’s chest. He slams back into his body with a thud because apart from anything else he’s confused but his hold on the whole thing is shaking at best and he’s still halfway to breaking Gon’s wrist. Gon drops both daggers and doesn’t try to pull away. Instead he says, through gritted teeth. “What part of that was your choice?”
The stars shed light dimly through Killua’s window into the room: it’s set high and it’s small but it does it’s purpose, tickling silver over the scars that lie like spiderwebs across his chest, raised and thick and thin and indented and ugly proof of an uglier past. He frowns, flinching back and pulling at the torn cloth, and it feels odd because he’s never really been self conscious but the anger in Gon’s expression is making his confusion worse and he’s remembering that he hasn’t spent long at all with people that have cared to understand much about him beyond how quickly he can slit a man’s jugular. “I’m going to assume that this is some sort of cultural difference, because where I come from trying to stab and undress another is not usually met with conversation.” He’s scowling but he’s calming, now, too, because Gon’s stepped back and he’s finding a better grip over his mind and body and he can deal with this, however perplexing it may have become.
Gon makes a sound somewhere at the back of his throat and Killua watches him and his expression doesn’t change. “Killua this isn’t. You aren’t. I’m not good at this.” Killua’s expression doesn’t change. His fingers are curled around the torn cloth on his chest. A foot away from him, having scratched the wooden floor, lies one of the daggers Gon had concealed within the sleeves of his hakama.
“Try.”
Gon sets his shoulders and lifts his chin and steps closer, and this time Killua steps back. He stops and stills and Killua wishes his expression would change because he knows that the mask which settles over his tanned, freckled features means something worse. “They hurt you. They forced you into this. You never had a choice. And I don’t know how I feature in it but there is one thing I will not accept and that is that you wanted any of it.”
Killua looks at his bed, neatly made with clean white sheets pressed flat and stark against the freshly stuffed mattress which smells of hay even from where he’s standing. He sighs and shuts his eyes and it’s not really letting his guard down because he can fight as well blindfolded. “It is not your concern. And it is done, regardless.” He manages not to catch Gon’s expression and so he misses the way that it falls, briefly. He steps back, and to the side. “Please, Gon. Let me sleep.”
For a moment silence sinks heavily between them, and Gon doesn’t move. But then he does, and the silk of his hakama whispers as he crosses the short distance to the door. He pauses beside him, and his eyes are almost black in the shadows. He looks down, at where Killua’s fingers are still curled around the torn fabric of his clothing, and then up again, to meet his gaze. Killua doesn’t meet his eyes, focusing instead on the smooth curve of his cheekbone, kissed by a handful of freckles in which he thinks he might find constellations, if he tried. Gon moves to lift his hand and Killua sways away and he drops it again with a soft, heavy sigh. But then he leans forward and presses his lips to Killua’s cheek: and they’re soft and dry and rough and warm, and it stings but doesn’t hurt. It just makes something spark somewhere beneath his skin and then Gon is sliding open the door and walking away with a whisper.
“Goodnight Killua.”
Killua shuts the door, checking the corridor again, and sits on his bed. For a moment, he stares into the shadows, elbows on his knees, head hanging low. Then he stands, filling a small wooden bowl with water from a bucket provided for the purpose, picking up the bar of crudely made unscented soap beside it. And he washes his hands. He does it once, and then again. And then again. And then again.
Killua’s not sure why he wakes, when he does. He lies in bed, not opening his eyes in case he gives himself away, perfectly still, breathing even. As he breathes, he knows: a mixture of familiar smells which are faint and bitter fill his mouth and he’s standing before his brain has quite caught up with his instincts. He hasn’t bothered to change, although his clothes are newly sticthced across his chest. He’s out of his room in moments and running and the smell is getting stronger and that’s when there’s a sound like a whip cracking and the splintering crunch of wood and it echoes sharply through the night.
There’s a rush and a huff and then there’s light, too bright for the stars, and after that there’s heat and by the time he gets to where he’s going smoke has throttled the slender corridor. The castle’s inhabitants are waking: he can hear voices, shouting and screaming and in some, small, young cases, crying. But Killua sort of doesn’t care because he learnt how not to years ago and he’s prioritising so he lifts a thin mask of muslin stitched to the collar of his shirt up and over his face and ducks low and runs forward through the fire. The intial blast had collapsed the right hand, outer side of the corridor. Three more shake the earth whilst he squints, eye streaming, through the smoke and erratic light of the flames.
His eyes are stinging and his skin is getting hot under his clothes and he can barely tell where the smoke ends and the fire begins but he doesn’t stop because he’s here for a reason and that’s when his foot hits something solid and he crouches down, fingers tripping over silk and ceramic armour and he knows this shape well enough that he barely needs to reach the body’s face to know who he is. One hand: burned and wrapped by tattered blackened cloth lies ruined and charred, still clutching what’s left of a leather pouch he recognises, but Killua already knew that it would be there. It’s getting hard to breathe and his eyes are burning and he doesn’t have long, now, so he uses his shoulder and charges at the half broken wall and doesn’t really care about the consequences. There’s a great splintering creak as with a crash the roof beams collapse but the wall gives out and that’s what he needed. Smoke and fire rush in a great roar towards the opening he’s created and he has all of a few seconds to grab the arms of the body that he’s found and drag it out into the night. Flames lick across his back and arms and he ignores them and is glad he can as he curls, shielding the weight in his arms.
There’s chaos outside: servants and soldiers milling back and for, shouting and running, throwing water up into the sky in a futile attempt to reach the roof. Orange light flickers up into the darkness, strangled by thick black smoke and the smell of burning flesh has joined that of the wood and Killua wrinkles his nose but he doesn’t have the time to think about it, he’s still dragging the body and it’s heavy and he doesn’t make it very far before he collapses to the ground, choking and ripping off the muslin over his face. He retches bile as if it will eject the burning sour taste of smoke in his throat and he’s barely breathing again before his fingers are nimbly tripping over burned and twisted and leather, and he growls in frustration, slipping a dagger from his sleeve in a flicker and slicing the contorted buckles. He removes the breast plate and he’s trying not to look at the left arm because first the body needs to be breathing, that’s important. He pushes the tightly bound hakama, charred and crumbling, to the side impatiently, exposing the body’s broad, burned chest, and he apologises before pulling open its mouth and shoving his fingers inside to check the throat is clear.
And the moon is bright and clear and beside that the fire is brighter and it’s so loud and this is just a body it’s just a body and he needs to wake it up again because it can’t die yet. Killua takes a deep breath and presses his mouth to the body’s and blows and pulls back and pushes hard at its chest, repeatedly, and then leans down and blows again and he keeps trying and he pretends that he’s crying for the smoke and that he’s not sobbing or begging and that this is going to work and then the body moves and it’s Gon, again.
“Gon? Gon! Gon wake up you bastard I’ll kill you if you don’t.” And he’s still pushing hard at his chest and Gon chokes and his eyelids flicker, dislodging ash, and Killua thinks deliriously that his eyebrows are left only in patches after the fire and that he’d tease him about that, later, but he’s too busy helping Gon sit up and choke and breathe and he’s breathing and it’s everything that’s ever mattered and Killua keeps hitting his chest but he’s not pushing any more, he’s just weeping. “You bastard, you bastard, you idiot how could you do this to me you asshole.”
And Gon’s still wheezing, and his breathing starts to shake and Killua pulls back and stares but Gon is smiling, despite the tears running from his eyes and the fact his arm still hasn’t so much as twitched. He starts to chuckle, and it sounds painful but it’s a laugh and Killua is staring like he’s never heard the sound before. “I’m sorry, Killua.” He wheezes and chokes and Killua waits and watches and his eyes are a little too wide and somewhere behind them the castle is burning and he just doesn’t care. “Did I worry you?”
Killua sort of folds around him, falling into his chest, and Gon wraps his right arm across his back, holding him like a child, and Killua doesn’t think about how slowly or weakly he does so. Gon leans back, lying on the ground, and Killua curls over his chest and sobs and punches him and growls. “Idiot.”
Gon laughs a little more loudly and for what feels like forever they stay, like that, and Killua listens to his heart and pretends he isn’t laying himself bare. Gon stares up at the stars and holds him and his breathing rattles but his heart thumps, slow and steady, hand moving from Killua’s back to his hair where he winds his fingers, shaking. “It’s ok, Killua. It’s ok.”
He understands why they have Leorio, now.
The man is dripping with almost as much blood as Killua ever has, and he can't tell where his stops and that of the others’ begins. His hakama is torn and charred and ribbons of the expensive material are strewn about the makeshift infirmary they’ve made of the banquet hall, acting as tourniquets and bandages. When he gets to Killua, he sees that he’s bearing at least two injuries of his own: blood has dried beneath a shallow groove in his temple, and his shoulder is a mess where a beam or something similar must have caught it. His cheeks and neck are smudged with soot that might be concealing more, Killua can’t tell. He does not so much as wince when he bends to assess the injuries of the girl beside them, fingers moving with nimble, practiced efficiency. He binds the shallow wound in her side, splints her wrist and applies a poultice to her neck, rinsing the two open wounds with a bowl of water held out for him by a small, plump, elderly woman who gives Killua a gentle smile as if he needs it before switching hands and passing Leorio a basket of clean, fresh bandages they must have found in the hours after the attack.
Leorio turns to him and his expression barely changes, his eyes: sharper and more clear, somehow, than before, graze over his body and then he reaches out, and Killua is so surprised he doesn't evade the movement, letting himself be turned in his place. "Lie down."
Leorio’s voice is gruff and to the point and Killua is about to explain, colourfully, the several thousand reasons he will not lie down before someone he doesn't trust but then Leorio’s thumb is pressing hard into the charred skin at the nape of his neck and Killua hisses loudly, which is as close to screaming as he comes these days, and leans forward. He lies on his belly and fumes and Leorio does not apparently notice, slicing down the back of his clothes, and Killua wonders, a little madly, what it is with Kurapika’s samurai and undressing him. Leorio moves his shirt to the side, peeling away the fabric from his sleeves and back carefully where it has clung to his burns, for which Killua is more grateful than he is able or willing to say. The older woman catches her breath as Leorio’s ministrations reveal a handful of the weapons that had been concealed there, but Leorio just grunts. "And here I was thinking you were a skinny bastard anyway. Where could you even hide these?"
Killua raises an eyebrow, and he’s going to say something but then Leorio’s applying the poultice he saw before and he's catching his breath. It’s cold and it stings but it’s not the worst he’s borne and already he can feel the burns cooling and despite himself he relaxes, just a little. And then Leorio’s nimble fingers trace absently over the scars between his newer burns: the letters between his shoulder blades, and he tenses again. But Leorio says nothing, just begins to wrap his arms, quick and firm and efficient. He talks again as he does. "Idiot. Did you think you could just grin and bear this? I don't care what kind of training you’ve had, if these had healed wrong you’d have to deal with it for the rest of your life."
"That might not be very long." Killua grunts, and supposes this isn’t the time to be rude. But children are crying softly nearby and he needs the distraction.
Leorio cuffs the back of his head, hard. "That doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter." Killua hears him sit up. "Ok, you can move. But don’t go over exerting yourself." Killua does, and it’s now that Leorio turns to Gon, lying unconscious where Killua had placed him beside an elder man, similarly quiet and unconscious. For just a second, Leorio’s hands hover, helpless, and Killua can see his concern and he can’t and doesn’t want to stop the rush of affection that rises in him for it. Then he sets to work. Killua helps him strip away Gon’s hakama, pressing a cold, damp cloth to his forehead when the elder woman offers it. He smiles at her, grateful, and doesn't pause to think about how long it’s been since he used the expression.
Leorio deals with the more superficial wounds first, though that covers bandaging most of Gon’s broad, lacerated chest. Then he gets to his arm. He pauses, frowning, and begins to carefully rinse the wounds, picking out fragments of cloth embedded in them. Gon winces in his sleep and Killua pats his forehead and mutters quiet nonsense as if that’ll help. When he’s done, Leorio reaches for his poultice, but Killua stops him. Stiffly, he bends to fish something from a pocket behind his knee, despite Leorio’s disapproving tut. He withdraws a small black ceramic pot, handing it to the samurai who frowns, uncorking it. "What is this?"
Killua shrugs. "We spend enough time making wounds to know about them. This should help him heal." He frowns, gaze flickering over the wide, long room: full of people on tables and the floor, bandaged and whimpering and bloody. "There’s not enough for everyone." His gaze falls to Gon’s ruined arm. He knows he’s selfish. He doesn't care. Leorio smiles a little, and Killua frowns. "What?"
"You didn't use it on yourself." Killua’s scowl deepens and he opens his mouth to respond but Leorio is already dipping his index finger into the pot and applying it to the least severe part of the burn. It’s not long before he’s done.
"It was Hisoka."
Killua is sitting with his arms folded beside where Gon is sleeping. He’s not sure from where exactly, but Leorio found him a blanket. Sleeping now, clean and bandaged, he looks miles further from death than he had on his back in the dirt under the smoke. Killua is still shaken by the memory of it.
He’s not surprised by the Daimyo’s proclamation. The way the magician had danced around the castle had been a little too lusty, even for him. He nods, once. The fact he isn't surprised doesn’t mean he isn't angry. Kurapika’s gaze falls to Gon. His cheeks are soot stained and red in places with dried blood, and beneath it he’s paler than before. "How is he?" He steps closer, reaching out, and Killua watches him lazily as if every muscle in his body isn't tense because he sort of needs to be able to protect Gon right now and he can’t, from this.
"Leorio says he’ll live. But." Kurapika’s gaze shifts to Gon’s arm and Killua pointedly doesn't follow it. The room smells of linen and fresh blood and herbs. Most are sleeping. 22 had been injured by the blasts, mostly servants . Three were dead: they’d be buried in the morning. The castle had suffered more severe damage than Kurapika’s retinue: they’d had to retreat to deep within its walls and those that weren’t injured lined the corridors in cramped frightened huddles.
"His arm." Kurapika whispers. Killua shifts a little, staring at the wall on the other side of the hall as if there’s anything remotely interesting there.
"Past his elbow it’ll be fine. But whether he’ll be able to use his hand...Leorio said that if it heals, it’d need at least a fortnight before he could use it at all. More, ideally." Killua recites the words calmly because he knows Kurapika needs to know and tries not to think about the implications of their meaning.
"And if it doesn't?"
"We’ll know when he wakes up. If he can’t feel it now, he won’t be able to again. We’ll need to." Killua stops and pauses because he’s thinking of a big warm calloused hand on his cheek in the dark. He grits his teeth. "We’ll need to remove it."
Kurapika nods. "Let us pray we do not have to."
Killua keeps staring at the wall. "I don’t pray." Kurapika pulls up an empty chair, sitting on the other side of Gon, and Killua glances at him from the corner of his eye to catch half a smile, despite the Daimyo’s focus on his samurai.
"I didn’t think you did."
"What’s the plan now?" Killua tries not to think about the way the skin on Gon’s nose is peeling a little , or how chapped his lips are, or the way his skin is all but grey beneath its tan with pain and fatigue.
Kurapika hums, softly, looking around the hall. "We can’t stay here." Killua bites back the ’obviously’ he wants to add. "I think we’ll head for the mountains."
Killua frowns and asks, "where?" Kurapika just smiles at him.
"I have to see the rest. Watch over him for me?" It’s not much of a question. Killua doesn’t bother answering. Kurapika runs a hand gently through Gon’s hair and leans down to kiss his forehead, murmuring something Killua doesn’t try to hear. It looks private, anyway. He keeps his arms folded as the Daimyo walks away, pausing to speak to the injured who are still conscious, and tries hard to convince himself that he still doesn’t care.