tear out all your tenderness.
characters: gon, killua.
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i. the bittersweetness of a brief and fading moment of beauty
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The stars are winking at him, and Gon cannot sleep. As much as he needs it, his eyes pulse at the thought of closing, and the brilliant night sky gazes down at him evenly. His mind coils into gear, moves light-years ahead of the rest of him. Every thought alternates between Kite's smirk at the agony he suffered right in front of Gon's very eyes, and all he feels is the immeasurable distance left behind from that day, smiles torn from both of their lips.
And maybe it is the first time he thinks, Killua must be suffering too. Killua, saving his life; Killua, pulling him out of the fist of death.
"Killua," he whispers, and watches the sweep of his lashes flutter until one of his eyes is fixed on Gon.
A yawn presses behind the quirk of his lips, but Killua only tilts his head against the tree trunk, crosses his ankles. "Why aren't you sleeping?" There is irritation in his voice, a mild chastisement. And surprise, Gon thinks, because he'd allowed Killua to fall asleep at his side.
He doesn't remember when the urge overtook him, but it had been there, applying a gentle pressure against his chest. All he could sense was the innate desire to see Killua's sleeping face, to know there was peace written in the lines of his dreams.
So he lies there, watching.
Gon twists onto his side, looks at Killua with Those Eyes, like he is trying to take in a sight like the entire galaxy stretched in front of him. "I just can't."
"Tch." He can see Killua's eyes rolling behind his eyelids when they close again, and his lips barely part, "let me sleep, then."
His breathing slows and it soothes Gon into a dream-like state, but he is not quite asleep, not quite sure of the state of things, only sure of the words in his throat. He counts the seconds, shapes the syllables in his mind's eye. And then, he speaks.
"Killua," and there is a sharp inhale, not enough space for interjection, "isn't the sky beautiful?"
He glances back into the sky, into the stars. They dance in front of him, dying in the universe, a beautiful death. His eyes are fixed on a cluster of them, thinking about his words before Killua's voice pierces his thoughts. "I never got to look at the sky often," he mumbles on the borderline of incoherency, and these are the statements that belie just how much Killua missed out on his childhood, on simply being.
"I used to go out fishing at night all the time," he says vibrantly, and he can hear the chastising click of Killua's teeth, "and whenever I got lost, I could always follow the stars home. Mito-san didn't like it much, though. But the stars always lead me to wherever I needed to be."
Nature entrances Gon, the summer songs of insects, the swaying dance of leaves in the breeze, the calming 'silence' of being surrounded by everything and nothing simultaneously. His hands pillow the back of his head and he sighs, picks his next few words carefully.
"I was never worried then, and I'm not worried now," there is a faint smile on his lips, "because that simply means I will always be able to find my way back to you."
He isn't sure that he hears a stifled noise from Killua's direction, not sure that he hasn't fallen asleep; Gon thinks of Killua, his friend, as Polaris, and it is then that he feels a slight ease at their impending fight and succumbs to sleep.
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ii. forty days, forty nights
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He thinks he will be lost in this wilderness forever.
Gon's heart is his compass, flickering towards the highest star in the sky, and he weaves his own shadow throughout the shadows of the trees on the forest floor. Time is ill-measured against the shadow of the moon, so there is only the ache of his feet and the yearning in his chest to say how long he has truly been away.
And the ache, he can endure; the longing for his friend, he cannot.
It is when he threatens to collapse from exhaustion that he stops the trainwreck of thoughts on his mind, is able to think clearly about a solution to this problem. Gon blinks once, twice, hard, and then his eyes glow with the wispy flames of Gyo, cutting through the forest infrared.
He's floored, instantly, at the source of Nen flickering in the center like a beacon. Killua, he thinks instantly, Killua, only Killua has Nen like this, an explosion of power, and he runs towards the massive energy, like a dead man on a mission.
Gon is halfway there, tripping over branches and hissing breaths between his clenched teeth, and he doesn't take in his surroundings (and Killua would have noticed, called him a fool for trampling over the evidence of danger in the clearing), just bulldozes his way into a moon-carved clearing.
What he sees is not at all what he expects.
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iii. failure
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"Killua," and as he says his name, he cannot believe it, barely recognizes him.
Amongst all of the terror and heartache, he'd almost forgotten, and his heart does not suppress the recurring reminder of this failure. Gon has failed Killua, it ticks with a piercing sensation straight through his ribcage, Gon has failed Killua who has never failed him. He had been so imbued with vengeance, running over with liquid hatred, so tangled up that he'd almost forgotten about his best friend, about his starlight.
This version of Killua blinks with cloud-blue eyes and gossamer-black lashes. Gon's fingers twitch at his side, his eyes wide with a latent mix of curiosity and horror. He wants to reach out and touch him, because there is a sliver of his brain that believes this to be an intricate mirage, but the apprehension in his friend's eyes deters him.
No, those are phantom eyes, eyes that hold more than the mind. Killua is taller than him now, with a narrow face and pointed nose and sharp fox eyes. He is not Killua, not as he has grown to know the boy, yet there is some familiar essence lodged in this new being.
"Killua," he repeats back to Gon, ignores the trance of his honey-brown eyes, as if he is not quite sold on the name, "is that what I'm called?"
Gon still doesn't know how to behave. This Killua is elegant, not at all child-like, not at all his best friend. He doesn't want to say what he knows has happened to his friend, but there is no denying it; his silver hair slips into his cloud, and the narrow points of his ears stick up through his hair.
He is not Killua any longer (he is reborn, a mosaic filled with glass-slivers of the soul of Killua).
"It's—It's what I call you. It's who you are." Gon's voice is steady with insistence.
His eyes hold levels of condescension, and Gon is not used to this sight. Killua has always been rounded edges and easy smiles, but the points of his ears and the sharp slant of his eyes prick his skin like needles.
"Come with me," Gon says with an outstretched hand, though Killua gazes at him as if he is simply speaking child wishes—silly and whimsical and the aimless sorts of things that simply pass the time.
When Killua holds his hand, all Gon feels is the slice of his claws.
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iv. without you
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He stares at him, an otherworldly vision. The forest is only slightly dark, slices of moonlight through the treetops to give him no cover, and Gon is unabashed with the blatant way that he stares at his friend. Killua is keen, with a wrinkle in the bridge of his nose and a twitch of his ears; he picks up on every subtle nuance.
Gon cannot decide how different this fox-child is from his best friend, not yet.
"Killua," and he reacts to the sound, not at all towards the recognition, with attentive eyes, "do you remember me?"
It is a miracle that he still walks by Gon's side, a distance taller, a fair distance away, but Killua turns his head and levels a glance towards his friend. Gon can see the clockwork in his eyes, the thoughts interlocking and churning in his mind. It is almost methodical, an insect android already defected from its Queen.
"I don't," there is a pout pressed to his mouth, thoughtfully, "but there is something within me that does."
Beautiful, smiling Killua with lightning veins, with starlight webspun hair.
"Yeah," he smiles sadly, misses the portrait vision of his friend, "I think there is, too."
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v. i don't have the answers, so i won't tell you lies
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The sound of his voice is a mixture, two parts fright, one part molten sweetness, a saccharine surprise in the hiccup of his throat. "Am I that different from your Killua?"
Gon's cheeks dust, a rose-petal pink, and he ducks his head down. He isn't sure about the answer, not 100% sure, anyway. He glances from the side of his eyes at Killua, sees the glimmer of his hair and knows he is still a treasure, still a captivating night star. Something within him aches so much that he cannot discern where it hurts, and Gon wonders if this is what it is like to be homesick for a person, and not a place.
"You're," he swallows the knot, you failed, you failed, "you're different, less delicate." Killua raises a carefully curved eyebrow, and Gon can see the outline of differences: less moondust, more steel, a non-collapsible skeleton carefully fitted underneath the canvas of his old friend. "Killua is soft, messy, like talc," he says artfully, "he becomes part of everything he touches. And he's strong," Gon says dreamily, and feels himself enamored by his own words.
Killua slips his hands behind his head, and it makes Gon dizzy with déjà vu. "Weak," he replies, with a mechanical voice, "he is brittle and weak, and falls apart at the demand of others."
Nothing makes Gon's head spin more than that, more than the idea of Killua being fragile and not soft, being like glass instead of a cloud. Nothing more than the idea of Killua being shattered, than the idea of shattering Killua himself.
It flashes across his eyes, Killua in pieces, Killua consumed, Killua reborn in his death as a phoenix in the fire of his own betrayal. He should have never left him.
Not to become this.
Gon clenches his teeth so hard that he thinks he will grind them down into sharp points, but he can't help but look at Killua despite his frustration. He is still magnetic, and there is still bits and pieces of him that feel like home.
Killua, as he is, may be strong and insusceptible to the weaknesses of the human Killua, but even he must lie down and rest. Gon stops under the falling leaves of trees, still dazed, still out of focus with the world around him. There is a stark absence in the shape of his best friend, filled messily and overflowing with this shadow replica.
Chimera. It floats into his mind lazily, but it stuns Gon as he watches Killua curl into himself at the base of a tree, his nose crinkles and his ears flattened into the disarray of his hair. It is the first time he thinks the phrase, recognizes his friend separately from him.
When he sleeps, he is vulnerable, but every sound in the forest leaves his ears swiveling back and forth, ready to awaken at the slightest surge of danger.
He is no longer human, he thinks as he watches his chest rise and fall, but he is still Killua, in ways.
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vi. foxes
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A fox, his brain divines from his appearance, beautiful and cunning and sly, perfect for Killua. Gon cannot think of a higher comparison for his friend, cannot think of words he has ever uttered that come close to summarizing Killua as an element, as a natural and unquestionable force.
Thin eyes and a sharp mind, a smirk of intelligence so lethal that Gon thinks it may be the last thing he will ever see.
Killua, he smiles sadly, the fox.
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vii. a lengthy shadow
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Seeing Killua in the sunlight is sinful.
In the middle of the night, even with the moonshine glow cast over him, he is shadows and flickering shapes of leaves hiding eyes like the sea.
But he smiles under the sun's rays, seems to find the beauty in his surroundings, the whimsy in being utterly lost in the forests. He grins full of teeth, a sly tilt to his expression, and he looks like a child, looks like Killua.
"Gon," he cheers, and something twists in the hollow of his stomach, "you'll take your Killua to the Queen?" His instincts still point him towards his Queen, towards the colony of those more like him and less like his travel companion, but he seems to have no problem with his flaring curiosity. "Why would you give him away?"
Gon blinks, the sunlight bright on his lashes, "I would never give Killua away." Fierce, harsh, passionate, his words are. "I never wanted to lose Killua, he is my home." And Gon wishes he could explain it, wishes he could explain that there are words for friends and words for love but no words for Killua, no words to encapsulate the sad song his heart sings for his own loss.
He is unfathomable, he is unthinkable, and this fox-child has stepped into a legacy of emotion with no tools to navigate it. When he says home, it is not a place, it is not simple. The home he built within Killua is from bits of bone and misplaced emotion and he wrecked it, all on his own.
For a single moment, the pain flares up in his chest, but then Gon sighs and it dribbles from his lips. "I miss him. But you—"
"I am Killua, too," he says intuitively, his bottom lip worried between his teeth, "I am Killua, left behind."
His teeth shine with a smile, and this time, it is Killua, the fox, who holds his hand out for Gon to take.
(And when he does, he feels the soft centers of his palm.)
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viii. lost in the thought of the things you would say
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He watches Killua fall asleep with dangerous ease, for someone he considers a stranger. Gon tries not to cry, but sometimes his sorrow is electric, it is shocking and convulses through his veins in spikes. Sometimes he cannot help when tears well in his eyes, cannot catch them when Killua's fox-ears twitch from the sounds of his sadness.
When it is overwhelming, he goes through his memories, from the first day of the Hunter exam and the day he met the boy with ocean eyes, a smile curved like the shoreline. He thinks, and he feels: the lightness of Killua's smile, the weight of his hardships, the doors he'd bruised his palms to open, the reality of it all.
Killua Zoldyck is not just a soul dreamt from the lingering edges of his memory.
Gon wonders if he remembers anything in the deep recesses of his mind, wonders if he is there, smiling and laughing and crying and hurting and being. He wonders if he exists beyond these last few days, wonders if there is more than a faint outline, a resonance within Killua that realizes that Gon belongs in that space of him.
He thinks of Killua, then Kite, with heartbreak and its wrath brimming within him.
The sight of Neferpitou flickers through his thoughts, and it is with this resolve that he decides to cease wallowing in the remnants of Killua, his Killua.
The last thing he thinks before he leaves him alone, curled up at the base of a tree, is that there have been worse things to happen to Killua, alone.
(This, this will save him, this will avenge him—he must go.)
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ix. could it be or is this the reality?
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(Killua, with gentle breaths and fox eyes full of shame, full of guilt as he trails behind him in the forest, a memory frozen in time and decaying with age.)
Maybe it is a dream. It happens more frequently than he likes, the uncertainty of whether he is experiencing a lucid reality or drowning in the manic waves of a night vision. There is an earthly smell that stings the air like blood, but Gon cannot see it. Perhaps his eyes are closed and these are simply the things he sees over his eyelids, the things he fabricates in his mind.
An angel with broad wings smiles warmly at him, holds its hands out towards Gon, and though his body walks forward, his mind recoils at each step. Blinding, white salvation meant to envelop him.
It is soft, and when it curls around him full of warmth, it smells like talc, smooths over his skin like clouds.
(Killua, with wide eyes and shaking hands collecting his worn body in his arms, touching his fingertips to Gon's face carefully, trembling at the vestiges of power flowing all around him.)
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x. starlight
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There is something growing heavy in Gon's chest at the sight of his friend, heavy and gnarled and ripping at the surface of his skin. Killua is a sight for sore eyes, which belies nothing else, not even the soreness that permeates Gon's body.
He had been a disfigured illusion, then; Gon had pressed every ounce of life force from his body, and he wondered if it had been nothing but a grand illusion, a boy with fox-sharp eyes and a determined glint to the points of his teeth.
But Killua is his, Killua is starlight and shaking and worried with eyes as wide as the sky.
"Gon," he whispers in his voice, the voice that rubs away like chalk, (brittle and weak and glass, shattered), and Gon does not as much hug him as he wraps every part of himself around his friend, presses his nose into his neck and squeezes Killua until he is nothing but gasps and high-pitched cries and sorrowful and happy and relieved.
"Killua," Gon mumbles into his cheek, and he can't tell from whose eyes the tears fall, can't tell where he ends and Killua begins. All he knows is that Killua is real, that he has not been ripped apart and born again, that he is a boy and not a fox. It is a vision of Killua that sits in the back of his mind, like an illusion crafted from madness.
What an intricate nightmare.
Gon falls away, but Killua holds him with his hands hung in the crescents of his palms, and it's fine, everything is fine.
And maybe, there is a part of him that thinks Killua can always find his way back to him, too.
…
notes: if it's super unclear what's real and what's not...then my job is done here. for nora and shannon for reading this a half-dozen times.