for end—surprise!
under the cut you will find a valentine’s-but-not-really piece written for the lovely @theapocalyptiqueend as part of the killugon secret cupid exchange 2022!
it was me all along!!! >:)
i have truly had such a lovely time lurking in your ask box, end!! thank you for humoring all my silly little asks and for giving me such a fun prompt <3 i hope i was able to fulfill it and that you enjoy :’)
i’d also like to extend a big big thank you to whelmed for putting on such a great event!! so well-organized and a fun idea—i'm so glad i was able to participate!!!
(also available on ao3)
Review the facts.
Gon knows that the first thing Killua would tell him to do is to review the facts.
1. Killua is missing.
There, that was easy—one fact down, a million more to go, a billion unknowns scattered somewhere between them.
2. Killua went missing during their latest mission.
The smell of smoke had clung to Gon’s clothes for days, much like the feeling of being lost and useless, until finally Leorio’s soft voice through the phone had urged him to take a break, shower, and maybe have something to eat that wasn’t coffee and regret.
3. They had been investigating a series of mysterious disappearances in a bustling city.
4. Ten people have gone missing (not including Killua) and besides the one he’s saved, nobody has any clue as to what’s happened.
See? This is easy.
Gon bites down at his anxiety, folds it up real small, and sticks it somewhere in the back of his mind. He doesn’t have room for anxiety, he has to make space in his head for all these facts!
5. The first person disappeared over six months ago.
Why did nobody find this suspicious?
5b. Nobody found this suspicious because folks that live on the streets don’t tend to stick around too long, either at any one camp or in the minds of those who have a home to return to.
Nobody looked until it was too late, until nine more people went missing, until Killua went missing. No, no. People were already looking before Killua went missing.
6. People were already looking before Killua went missing.
7. Killua was one of the people looking.
Stop it, Killua is one of the people looking.
7, amended. Killua is one of the people looking.
8. Killua has been missing for two weeks.
9. Gon has to be the one to find Killua, and he has to do it soon.
And all the rest of the victims, of course.
10. Gon hates lists. They feel like a waste of time, no matter what Killua says.
There. Ten facts for ten people missing. Not eleven, because if Gon adds Killua to the standing number of people who were somehow spirited away in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world, he will very promptly cease to function and be of no help in finding anybody. Yes, Killua’s absence is very much in the process of killing him, slowly ripping at his insides and clawing roughly at his heart, and, yes, he feels quite like he’s lost his right arm, but he knows if there was ever a time to be patient and clever and observant and everything else that people always tell him he’s not, it’s now. Despite every alarm and siren screaming at him in his head to just move, just do something, quick!, he makes himself stop and think and list fucking facts.
But it’s been two weeks, and he hasn’t even managed to pick up a single trail. It’s like Killua just stopped existing.
Gon manually turns off all the ringing bells in his head and goes out for a walk, just to clear his head, just to think about something else and breathe some air that isn’t recirculated through the same six-hundred rooms ad infinitum.
He finds himself two blocks away from the last place he’d seen Killua when he decides, for what feels like the thousandth time this week, to retrace his and Killua’s steps from the very beginning. He will go through the case just one more time, hoping against all hope that this time will be different, this time he will have some sort of breakthrough that will put him one step closer to getting Killua home.
Gon sinks into an empty bench and decides to start by putting himself in Killua’s shoes first this time, rather than picking up where he’d joined the team. It’s Killua’s mission, after all, he reminds himself.
Raising his cell to his ear, he pantomimes a phone call.
He imagines the way Killua would have picked up the phone, a little rough but still polite, and had the police chief of a city he’s never been to tell him about a string of very suspicious disappearances, his brain moving faster than the man could relay to him what little details he had. The chief would have told him that with such a strange case as this, they’re really a bit out of their league, and, well, Killua’s name was the first one that came up when the conversation turned to hunters that might be able to help.
Killua probably pressed for more information, causing the police chief to divulge that, well, originally it had just been a couple of bums that the mayor was honestly glad to see go, but that the disappeared had been turning out to be increasingly influential people in the city, hence the need for an investigation.
Even just thinking about the chief’s words makes Gon’s blood boil. How can someone decide that one person’s life is worth less than another’s? This righteous rage is unhelpful right now, though, so he becomes Killua again.
Killua took the job, obviously.
Behind his professional and sometimes disinterested demeanor when dealing with the people that hire him, Killua is full of a deep sense of compassion for the families of those left in the wake of crimes like these. Gon knows that it’s because at one point in his life, all Killua knew was the other side of the case, the one that made the people disappear and left others behind to clean up the mess. It’s endearing, really, when he looks at how far Killua has come in the years since they’ve met, how his cool and proud facade has melted into something much more solemn and caring. It’s like he wants to make up for the pain he caused as a child, though Gon doesn’t really think it’s his cross to bear.
A child doesn’t ask to be sharpened into a killer like some tool to be used.
Returning to his mental movie, Gon watches Killua conduct interviews with all of the families, coworkers, and acquaintances of the disappeared, building a file on all of them and cross-checking their references and alibis with a thoroughness that would make Gon’s brain ooze out of his head. The fact that someone could take that much time making essentially zero tangible progress and still have it all tie together in the end is something, to him, akin to sorcery.
Except that this time, it didn’t all tie together.
Gon goes back to being himself and pretends to pick up the phone again, only this time it’s Killua on the other end.
Killua had called him a few days into his investigation to tell him that he needed his help. He’d said that all of the victims had last been seen with someone very close to them, but that after interviewing all of those people, their alibis had checked out and Killua was certain to the marrow in his bones that they weren’t lying.
Gon had hopped on the first plane available, pointedly ignoring Killua’s jab about needing a freakish nose and set of eyes to figure this out. None of the kidnappings had left behind any sort of visible evidence or even residual aura, so this had to be something deeper than the average kidnapper. Killua needed him, so he went.
Okay.
Gon stands from his bench and continues retracing their steps, walking to the house of the ninth victim, some ridiculous mansion on the corner of a boulevard that boasts at least six others, and stands right where he had with Killua, crouched under a rose bush.
Before they could get much done, they were on the phone again—wow, they really did spend a lot of time on the phone, didn’t they—it was the police chief again. The young daughter of a big investor had been seen walking with her father around twenty minutes ago down a busy street, but her father was in the middle of a very important presentation at his office.
They'd set off running before the chief even finished his report—all they needed to know was that they were the closest in proximity to the place she was last seen and what direction she had headed in.
Pretending Killua is right by his side, Gon takes off at the same breakneck speed he had that day and runs like a madman to the empty business park they’d tracked her down to. He’d picked up the faint scent of perfume and Killua had rolled his eyes at him. “You’re such a weirdo,” he had said with no real malice in his voice.
Gon does his best to focus on the way his legs feel as they propel his body forward, on the way the wind whistles in his ears as he runs, anything but the way his heart constricts in his chest when he remembers Killua’s little quip.
Just before he makes it to the business park, Gon ducks into an alley and hugs the wall, catching his breath and sinking to the ground unsteadily. It won’t make sense to get there yet, not until he catches up with reality.
When they’d arrived, Gon had lost the trail but he was almost certain she was nearby. A competitive fire sparked and Gon couldn’t help but suggest they each take one of the abandoned buildings, make it a competition. Killua paused and gnawed on his lip as he considered it.
“Come on, Killua! We never get to work together, let’s have some fun!” he had said, goading Killua to take the bait.
A moment later, Killua looked at him, smiled that little smile of his, and offered a tiny nod. “Backup should be here soon anyway,” he’d said, shrugging. “When I win, you’re buying me dinner and a drink.”
And they split up. How desperately Gon wishes they hadn’t.
It wouldn’t have taken long to do it the right way, and, looking back, if Gon had wanted to work the mission with Killua instead of against him, he really should’ve stayed by his side. He could’ve watched Killua sip a fruity cocktail that night if he had.
This is your fault, a voice in his head reminds him. Gon believes it, wholeheartedly. Killua has always been more likely to slip up in ways he normally wouldn’t when Gon is around; maybe if he weren’t so disruptive and overbearing on missions, this wouldn’t have happened. If he just followed Killua’s lead without challenging him, maybe—
After they’d split up, things were easy. Maybe, in hindsight, a little too easy.
He’d picked up the scent of the girl’s perfume again right away, followed it a surprisingly short distance to an empty conference hall, and there she was. There were only two men to take care of, both easily knocked out, and he was calling for an escort out of the building in less than five minutes. The girl had looked around uneasily for her father, but once Gon assured her that she was safe, the thought was banished from his head.
Meandering slowly toward the parking lot, Gon recalls the chief’s hand, waiting to be shaken the moment he emerged with the girl.
He didn’t want to shake his hand, though. Gon had just wanted to find Killua, tell him how easy it had been, rub it in a little that he was the one getting dinner again before saying softly that they’d split it or that it was really Gon’s turn, so he’d let it slide, just this once.
But Killua was nowhere to be found, nobody had seen him.
Gon had looked toward where the two men sat on the floor in front of a police van, restrained with nen-inhibiting handcuffs, and one of them looked at him with the most smug and self-satisfied expression he'd ever seen.
He doesn’t remember crossing the short distance between them or how roughly he’d grabbed the guy off the ground. He hardly remembers punching him, the way the man’s blood felt as it cooled on his knuckles. The man didn’t say a thing—he just laughed at Gon and let himself be hit.
“Stand down,” the police chief had whispered in his ear, all steely cool and quiet. “I’ll report you to the Association, you half-hunter, if you’re not careful.”
Gon had dropped the man and turned to meet the chief’s eye. “And why would you do that?” he had asked, clenching his fists at his side.
“You ruin this investigation, I tell the Chairman you’re operating under the guise of a hunter without any control of nen. You’ll kiss your license goodbye so fast you won’t even have time to look for your friend here. We’ve got the guy. Now, stand down.”
Gon knows the bylaws. His license can’t be revoked for any reason, not even for losing his nen. But, there was something in the chief’s voice, something calculating and almost malevolent that made him shut his mouth and start walking back to look for Killua.
He had hardly taken three steps before he watched any trace of Killua go up in smoke and flames. Bombs went off in every building in the abandoned business park and they all crumbled to the ground. With them, Gon’s confidence in getting Killua back crumbled as well. The man he had hit laughed through the blood in his mouth, an awful gurgling sound that made Gon’s stomach churn.
Now, Gon finally allows himself to look at the crumbled remains. It’s all long since stopped smoldering, but the whole place still seems to crackle ominously and radiate a strange heat.
Walking through the dusty debris, Gon isn’t really sure what he’s hoping to find. A clue, sure, but he realizes, looking at the leveled buildings, that he’s more likely to find a body than evidence that Killua made it out alive. He tries to file this away, like he did with his anxiety, but the moment he opens the little drawer where he’s been putting all the things he’d rather not be thinking about, its contents all spill out like a clown pulling handkerchiefs from his sleeve long after the bit stops being funny.
The little voice in his head taunts him, laughs at him for thinking he could still keep up with Killua, protect him, even, when he’s hardly even a fraction of who he was at age thirteen.
Gon kicks hard at a pile of rubble, eyes stinging in a way he wishes they wouldn’t. He sinks to his knees, frustrated with himself, the world, that stupid fucking goon who blew up this place, and lets his chest heave a massive sob. He shouldn’t cry like this, he doesn’t deserve it, but he feels useless and stupid and it’s all he can do to let himself feel everything. Killua would probably roll his eyes at him but place a gentle hand on his shoulder nonetheless, two things he knows he has no right to want but still hopelessly desires.
He looks down at his hands, blurred splotches of tanned skin in his vision, and sees how they shake. Tears sink into the broken slabs of concrete beneath him, filling little cracks like flooding rivers after a drought. He watches the movement through his bleary vision, willing himself to pull it together, to catch his breath and wipe roughly at his tears and say to himself, “That’s enough. Keep it steady.”
The tiny rivers on the concrete join and curve in a strange way, Gon realizes, drying his eyes and blinking rapidly. He picks up the chunk of concrete, and rubs the surface almost frantically with the side of his hand, wiping off the layer of mud that covers jagged little lines that remind him of a shape he saw once when he was younger. From the dirt materializes the wiggly shape of a six-pointed star, made of dozens of little lightning bolts.
It comes to him instantly: the design that was on Killua’s superalloy yoyos when they were kids had looked just like this, if not a bit smoother. But it’s unmistakable, Killua left him a sign.
Gon’s eyes are still wet and stinging, but he feels pure relief wash over him as he looks at the little star.
There’s hope yet.
He just has to find another, just a few more of these stars, and he’ll find his way to Killua.
Desperately wishing he could use Gyo to look for traces of Killua’s nen, Gon lets his eyes linger on the shape for just a moment longer, despite knowing full-well that he will never again see the comforting blue glow of Killua’s nen. He closes his eyes instead, willing himself to pick up on any lingering trace of the strangely sweet smell of ozone Killua has. Gon lets himself be guided by the faintest scent of a storm, light enough to make him question if it’s even real, to another pile of rocks.
Another star, this one broken up by the blast, lays about a hundred yards from the first. He can work with this. If there’s anything he’s good at, it’s following a trail.
The stars lead him to another abandoned building, this one reminiscent of the Spiders’ hideout in Yorknew. The farther he’s gotten from the original business park, the less distinct the stars have become. By now, they’re just a collection of jagged lines, so faint that if Gon weren’t looking for them, they’d easily be missed.
I’m allowed to say it, but you aren’t!
Why that fight suddenly popped up, Gon’s not really sure. Maybe it’s the eerie vibes of the building, maybe it’s the way he can tell that Killua’s strength has waned between the first star and this last, but all of a sudden Gon can’t stop thinking about a young Killua being prepared to die like it was nothing. They’d made a promise, after everything, that they’d live for each other instead. Survive, and thrive, and grow—for each other, yes, but for themselves too.
He grits his teeth and moves on. The burn marks may have run out but Gon would bet his life on Killua being nearby. He doesn’t need nen to know that Killua is close.
A clinking noise, coming from overhead, draws his attention.
He could cry, he thinks, running up a set of stairs nearby. He’s moments away from seeing Killua, from bringing him home and hearing about everything that’s happened in the time they’ve been apart, and he feels if he were to jump a little harder, he’d float up and along the stairway.
A door slightly ajar and a sound, unmistakably chains, confirms his suspicions.
Gon bursts through the door, heart blazing so hot he could take on a hundred men if that’s what it comes to, but he finds a mostly empty room instead. Killua is chained to a ring on the floor, looking at him, his face flickering between disbelief and fear.
“Oh, Killua, thank god,” Gon says, rushing forward to him. He looks like he’s been beaten within an inch of his life and Gon’s heart breaks at this, of course it does, but he’s just so happy—
“Get away from me!” Killua yells, voice hoarse. He clamors back as far as his chains will let him.
Gon can see that he’s shaking; he’s terrified. “But, Killua, it’s just me. It’s Gon, you’re safe now.”
“Stop it,” Killua whispers. He curls up into himself, covering his face with his hands and mumbling, “Stop trying to trick me, I don’t believe you. Stop it, please.”
Killua’s restraints clink as he shakes and Gon realizes how thin his wrists look on top of everything else. He wonders just what they’ve done to him.
“Just drop the act,” Killua whispers again, uncovering his eyes to look back at Gon. They shine with tears. “If you’re going to kill me I at least need to see the real face of my killer, please. Show me your face, you fucking coward.”
Gon takes a half step forward, then he remembers. The girl he’d saved had been afraid that her father was nearby, she had trembled in much the same way Killua does. It all comes together when he hears a parrot of his own voice behind him, “But where’s the fun in that?”
Killua draws a sharp breath behind him and Gon squares his shoulders against… himself. It’s like he’s looking in a funhouse mirror—the other Gon looks like an almost exact copy of himself, but there’s something deeply and fundamentally wrong about it that Gon couldn’t even begin to describe if he tried.
“What are you?” he growls. Gon tries not to think too much about what he’s seeing, what Killua has likely been suffering through—he doesn’t think he can take it right now.
“Gon, don’t—” Killua’s voice is strained, but Gon doesn’t turn to him.
“I take the face of the person you love the most, can’t you tell?” the man asks, motioning to his body and laughing. “There’s something so satisfying about watching the life drain out of someone’s eyes when you look just like the person who could never lift a hand against them. The irony is delicious, don’t you agree?”
“That’s sick,” Gon spits. “If you think you’re getting away with this again, you’re dead wrong. This ends here.” He takes a fighting stance, ready to kick this guy into next Wednesday, but the man just clicks his tongue and shakes his head.
“Could you kill the person you love most? That’s what it might come to, you know.”
The man’s image ripples for an instant before Gon is left standing in front of a mimic-Killua, blood, bruises, and all. “Oh, that’s fortuitous for you,” he says, looking down at himself. “Would’ve been a little awkward if it had been someone else, now that I think about it.”
Gon finds he can’t move, fundamentally aware that the man before him isn’t Killua, but still hesitant to strike at his image nonetheless. Killua’s voice breaks his pause, “Gon!”
In an instant, Gon is advancing. It’s not Killua, he tells himself, it’s just a sick man impersonating him. Quick jabs are blocked by this false Killua’s arms, leading with his right hand as he staggers back.
“Gon, don’t! You’re hurting me!” the man yells in Killua’s voice. This only serves to make Gon angrier, faster, stronger.
“Killua leads with his left,” Gon pants, “even though he favors his right hand for everything else.” He kicks into the man’s side, hard. “You might have a face that looks like Killua’s, but you’ve gotten everything else wrong.”
The man pauses for a moment, but a moment is all Gon needs. He sees an opening, sends a flat palm into his chest, and pushes hard. The man goes tumbling back into the wall and Killua’s image fades back into his real face. “I don’t get it,” he says. “My guesses are always enough to fool, nobody has ever been able to tell before.”
“Hey, idiot, I could tell,” Killua grumbles, staring holes into a spot on the floor. “You’re nothing special.”
Grabbing a nearby segment of chain and decidedly not thinking about why it’s there, Gon ties the man’s hands and feet before standing. “You’re just a coward who hides behind someone else’s face to gain enough confidence to act.”
Now that his attention can finally, finally turn fully onto Killua, Gon can’t help the way he practically runs to his side and falls to his knees with relief. “Killua, I’m so sorry,” he says, reaching forward to hold one of Killua’s hands. He flinches, as though he’s still expecting Gon to reveal himself as a second doppelganger, but he apologizes quietly and lets Gon take his hand.
Gon runs his eyes all over Killua’s body, trying to assess the damage but struggling to tell what’s fresh and what’s healing from all the dried blood and bruising. “What’s happened to you?” he asks, biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying again. “I’m sorry I took so long.”
Killua looks up at him and he looks almost angry. “If you saw the stars, then why did you come?”
Gon blinks. “Those weren’t a trail for me to follow?” He watches as Killua experiences the seven stages of grief right here and now, his face flickering through emotions before he finally settles on his unique brand of Annoyed At Gon.
“No, you moron! It was to show you that I was okay!” Killua shouts. Or, he would be shouting, if his voice wasn’t so gravelly. “It was so you wouldn’t come after me alone like a fucking idiot. I specifically picked a symbol that by now only you could recognize. I’m glad you caught on, but seriously?”
“Then why did you leave a trail if you didn’t want me to follow it? We made a promise, Killua! A trail I’m not supposed to follow seems an awful lot like breaking that promise.”
Killua huffs a breath and looks up at Gon almost shyly. “Maybe, in the back of my mind, I did want you to follow it.” He pauses. “I knew it wasn’t you that approached me that day, just like you knew that wasn’t me a minute ago, but after a while it was too much, you know? I—I guess did break our promise, for a while there. I’m glad you came. Any more and I would’ve given up completely.”
Hearing Killua confess to that, Gon can only begin to scrape the surface of how deeply these last few weeks have worn down on him. It breaks his heart to hear Killua admit defeat like this, his usually confident demeanor reduced to shaking hands and a tentative voice. He knows this isn’t weakness—if anything, this is a sort of strength that Gon could only see in Killua. He wonders if this experience was at all reminiscent of his family’s treatment of him, but Gon keeps himself from asking.
Gon reaches forward, gently, and pulls Killua close. He plants a gentle kiss on his forehead and holds him, for a moment, in silence. Killua trembles like a leaf but Gon holds him steady and waits for the moment to pass.
“Hey, Gon?” Killua murmurs into Gon’s shirt. “Can you, uh, get me out of these chains? They’ve got some sort of nen inhibitor and I feel like shit.”
“Oh! Yeah, of course!” Gon replies. He narrows his eyes and puts on a cheeky grin and says, “Watch this.” It takes a little effort, but Gon is able to wrench apart the links and undo Killua’s restraints—Bisky had once said something about glorious muscles being a man’s only true weapon.
He can’t help but linger on the chains for a moment, remembering the handcuffs the police force used. He files this away for later, focusing on the way Killua is looking at him instead—a blush creeps across Killua’s cheeks and sends Gon’s heart hammering away in his chest.
It very quickly becomes obvious that Killua can’t walk, despite his best efforts to hide it, so Gon maneuvers him onto his back and they make their way to the shapeshifter.
“We should probably take him to the Association, he told me he’s killed all his other victims,” Killua mumbles into Gon’s shoulder. “They have to have someone who can look into his mind and find where he dumped the bodies.”
Gon wordlessly nods and makes the man walk in front of them as they slowly make their way out of the building.
---
Back at their hotel, Gon watches Killua sleep.
He’d helped Killua into the bath and washed his hair when he found he couldn’t lift his arms enough to do it himself. Killua had blushed and grumbled something about Gon doting too much, but he’d let him wash and dress every last wound and had only complained a little when Gon kissed his forehead and tucked him under three blankets.
Tomorrow, Gon will look into his suspicions about the police chief. Tomorrow, he will worry about the victims’ families and arranging teams to find their final resting places. Tomorrow, he will do everything he can to set justice into motion for everyone who has suffered at the hands of that coward.
Tonight, though, he will hold Killua’s hand as he sleeps, and wonder what they’ll have for breakfast when he wakes.