Alluka occupied all of his time and all of his thoughts. The hours turned to days, the days to weeks, the weeks to months. Here lies an oasis in the trackless universe of sand, the solace found in a traveler's emptiness and the warm shape of his sister's hand in his own. Here lies Killua Zoldyck.

Like tumbleweed, they picked up and moved wherever the fickle wind blew. No place to return to or destination to guide them, they let themselves be swept up by the most dangerous kind of freedom, the carnivorous wanderlust that tends to erode a man's character, leaving behind a face rubbed blank to sight and numb to touch—eaten alive. But Killua was familiar with living dangerously, and he bore it as he bore all things: stiff-lipped and bright-eyed.

Hours, days, weeks, months. Every step got easier with the next. They stood at no one's mercy but their own.

"Look at me!" his sister called down from a ways up a tree, the tallest one they could find in the local oak metropolis. He waited at its base with arms tense at his sides, ready to shoot out and catch her at a moment's notice. A few ominous snaps later, he made good on his caution and plucked her from the air.

"You're so strong," she exclaimed, stars in her eyes. "My brother's the strongest!"

"Damn straight," Killua agreed as he moved to set her down.

"I think I'll want a boyfriend just like you."

He paused just short of letting her go. "Eh?"

"Someone who can carry me so fast, for so long," she explained. "And who loves me so, so much!"

"Yeah, well, no one's as great as me," Killua dismissed. "So don't even bother thinking about boys. Trust me; they're not worth it."

"But… why not?"

He undid his progress in putting her down, hoisting her back up to his shoulders in one swift movement and smirking at her surprised squeal. "'Cause no one's good enough for you, chicky."

"That's okay," she argued. "It doesn't always have to be equal."

Killua knew what she meant. "That's because Something's just too nice. Isn't that right?"

"Ahhhh," Something happily sighed.

"So you should never, ever settle for some loser. Got it?"

"Hmph," Alluka pouted.

"So let's go!" he whooped as he took off at one of his higher speeds, the warm summer air battering his ears. Beneath the roaring wind, he could faintly hear Alluka's gasping screams of laughter, and he made a few dizzying loops around the forest before stopping short of their motel. Fisting tightly at his shirt, she leaned further out in front of him so that her upper half was draped almost entirely over his left shoulder.

"A… again…" she panted gleefully. After a few more laps, Killua finally set her free, smiling down at her windswept castle of hair.

Running for Alluka never felt like running. It felt like walking, like breathing, like basking in the sun. It was something he could do forever. It was the sole bit of proof in his life that maybe, just maybe, love can be enough.

"Killu," Alluka murmured later as they lay in bed, tucked in against his side.

"Hm?"

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?"

"Ah," he hummed. "Me? No."

"Why not?"

"Because nobody's good enough for me, obviously."

"Oh… why not?"

"Tch," he grunted. "I've just never felt that way about a girl. Don't ask why not."

"But wouldn't it be fun to have someone like that?"

Maybe, Killua thought.

"Only sometimes," he said, hyper-aware of the impact of his voice on the dead silence of the room. "It's not something you do for the fun; you do it 'cause you… have to, in a way. It's too hard to stop yourself."

"Why?"

"Nobody knows," he admitted. What makes platonic love become romantic? How does I really like you turn into I really like you? Why do some people feel it and others don't?

"But Killua knows," Something insisted. The wide blackness of her eyes gleamed yellow in the light of the lamp. "Killua is always knowing."

He let the smile touch his face, and he let it reach his eyes. "Only sometimes."

"…Pet my head."

"Of course," he said, threading his fingers through her tousled hair to work out all the knots.

"…Hey, Killu?" Alluka asked.

"Mm-hmm?"

"What's sex like?"

"Khck—" Killua abruptly hacked, like the wind was knocked out of him. "How do you even know about stuff like that?"

"Something told me."

"Ahem," he cleared his throat. "W-well. Um."

Rain began to beat down against the window. The percussion was a calming presence, filling the silence with its thoughtless, comfortable oblivion. It occurred to Killua that his shoes were still outside; Alluka had decided they were too muddy to track in on the motel carpet, so he'd left them at the door. Perhaps they'd be washed by the time the storm ran through.

He closed his eyes and let the words come.

"It, um, feels really good if you know what you're doing."

Alluka stared eagerly up at him, waiting for more details. Now there was a distant roll of thunder.

"And… and if you're really good, you can make the girl feel even better, which is a whole other sort of… nice feeling."

"Have you ever had sex?"

"Can't say that I have," he laughed. In some pains there lies a sweetness if you carry it long enough—the masochism of self-reflection, as if the Buddhist suicide were an inevitable result of such introspection. "I don't think it would sit very well with me; I'm not cut out for that kind of stuff. 'Sides, kids like you and me aren't supposed be having sex in the first place. It's wrong."

"How come?"

Some things were simply too bright for scrutiny.

"It," Killua started, hung up on the lump in his throat. After swallowing, he tried again. "It makes babies. That's a big deal, I think you can agree. We have to pay some respect."

"I don't get it…"

"That's okay," he whispered. "Some people don't. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Can I have sex, someday?" Alluka asked.

Please don't talk about that.

"No way," he refused. "You're way too good for all the creeps who would think that way about you."

"But what if I think of them?"

"You won't," Killua told her. "Trust me."

"…Pet my head," Something instructed.

"Sure thing."

And by the time dawn came, the rain had finally stopped. Alluka lay quietly in bed, her chest rising and falling as full-bodied and reliable as the circle of life itself. Killua looked out the window at the overcast morning sky—a shapeless, lonely sheet of grey—and wondered if Gon was having a rainy day, too. If he could hear the same steady pitter-patter of water dripping off branches, gutters, powerlines, and rafters, accumulating puddles even in absence of the storm. If he ever looked out windows and imagined that he saw Killua down the road ahead, too far away to ever truly be sure, peeking over the top of the hill.

Killua examined his waterlogged shoes and wondered, not for the first time, if he had become a good person.