AN: End of Yorkshin Arc and moving into Greed Island. From there, I'm skipping the chorus to do the second part and the chorus will be the final-to-last chapters. Again, I know this has a lot of time skips so.. Ima just go with it and see what happens. I'm not really sure how to feel about this chapter cause it seems out of place but all well THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR WRITING WHATEVER COMES OUT OF MY CRAZY FILLED HEAD. Thanks.

Enjoy.

"When I found him in the alley, in the middle of the Night."

"I can't do this! I can't!"

"Fuck- Gon, stop! You're destroying the whole fucking place! Do you want us to get in trouble?!"

"NO! Shut up! Leave me alone!"

"Gon! Calm the hell down for fucks sake. You're not going to die so get a hold of yourself!"

"GO AWAY!"

"Not until you settle down and stop freaking out. It's going to be okay so CALM DOWN, IDIOT."

"I can't. I just- I can't. I can't do this. It's not going to work. I'm not going to make it. I can't-!"

"STOP IT MORON. YOU HAVE TO STOP."

"NO!"

"GON-"

SMASH.

"Zepile!"

Sometime nearing midnight on the bustling streets of Yorkshin, Zepile was making his way back towards the airport and prepared to meet his flight by two in the morning, when his name was unexpectedly called from behind. The man with the magnificent set of curled up eyebrows turned just in time to step back as Killua came skidding to a halt right beside him, his shoes squelching on the wet cement until he stopped. He obviously had been running at quite a speed to perform such a long sliding maneuver. There were tread marks left behind.

"Killua? What are you doing? It's pouring rain and almost midnight." Zepile frowned, adjusting his umbrella overhead. Killua hadn't even bothered to come with one; he was drenched to the bone and his clothes were plastered to his skinny frame. He could clearly see the outlining of his ribs, his muscles, his sharp and cutting angles. But it wasn't his daunting appearance that sent chills up the appraiser 's spine; it was the distressed, panicked look of a normally very-composed and calm teenage boy. On top of that; there were two baseball-sized bruises on his face, under his eye and around his slightly swollen jaw. The rest of him looked worse for wear and Zepile wondered how bad his soaking clothes hid his real state of appearance. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"Gon-" Killua wheezed as he gasped for air, bent down to rest as he grabbed onto his knees for support. His breathing was ragged, hoarse. Zepile wondered if he had been crying from the way his voice trembled; shook like leaves in a storm, branches battling the wind's turbulence. "-Gon is. He's. I. We were."

"Calm down, first. Then explain what's going on once you catch your breath." Zepile offered, stepping forward with his umbrella cover so at least some of the pounding rain wouldn't lead Killua to hypothermia.

When the cerulean eyed teen finally pulled himself back upright again, he placed a hand on his head and shuddered, facial expression obviously disturbed. There was a nice laceration hiding behind his long bangs and now Zepile clearly saw the bit of fresh blood dripping there. He gulped. "I can't find Gon. Have you seen him?"

"Gon? No, I haven't." hummed Zepile, glancing left and right just in case he did happen to spot him if he were missing. "Why? What's wrong?"

"He's been missing for the last two hours and I can't find him." Killua grimaced, blue eyes dark. He hung his head low, shamefully, and his pale skinned face turned dark as well. "We had a fight." He added, as an afterthought; the bite and sting of his words doing little to mask the pain he must have suffered from.

"Did he mention where he was going? Anything at all that we can use a lead?"

"No."

"What about any places in Yorkshin that he might go? Any places you've visited that he shown a liking to?"

"No."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing."

Sighing, Zepile pulled out his cell phone and flashed it towards Killua even though he didn't bother to look up when he did. "Did you try calling him? Do you want me to try, too, just in case?"

"He left his phone behind back at the hotel."

"I guess that rules those options out then." Zepile pocketed his phone again and passed his umbrella down to Killua who was so startled he took several steps back out of reflex, only relaxing slightly when he realized it was just him and no one else. "Here, take this. You're freezing cold. Maybe you should go back to the hotel and change your clothes."

"I'm not cold." Killua protested weakly even as he was shaking from head to toe. It wasn't a total lie. He was just a little cold. "And I don't need to change my clothes. I need to find Gon."

"You'll be frozen solid at the current rate you're going, then." Zepile's crazy brows rose to his hairline and he took note of the convenience store conveniently located right next to them. He glanced back and set a hand on Killua's shoulder, feeling the rock-hard tenseness beneath those bones, and did his best to smile if it may just ease the pressure. "Wait here. I'll get you something to change into and then we'll look for Gon."

"I can't wait-" But Zepile was inside before Killua could even finish his sentence.

In the time it took for Killua to resolve the mental battle he was having within himself on whether or not he should continue his search alone or with help; Zepile returned with a fresh warm, over-sized coat and a poncho since the store wasn't as convenient as he had hoped it'd be. But it was more then enough and Killua slipped them on as they started their trek down Yorkshin's busy, late night streets still flooded with bustling night-goers and black-owls.

"What were you two fighting about, if I may ask?"

Killua bit his lip, not responding immediately, but he figured it'd be best if Zepile at least knew a little about what was going on. They had trusted Zepile through thick and thin and he had finished his task well; it was the least Killua could do but not lie completely to him.

And he knew Zepile was leaving and had very little correlation to Leorio and Kurapika; the nagging pair of surrogate parents to Gon and Killua whom he did not need the hassle from. At least in this case, he could get away with leaking out at least some of the true.

"He's out of drugs."

"What-?"

"He ran out of drugs. And we were fighting about it, because he doesn't have enough to last through Greed Island and he doesn't know what to do."

"Gon's doing drugs? Since when?" Zepile looked shocked, no, was shocked. He knew Gon had an innocent curiosity but he never fathomed it would lead to such an outcome. Never.

"Awhile now. But he's out so he was pretty upset."

"Oh man." The appraiser said, eyes downcast and following the sidewalk that they walked upon. "I can't believe it."

"He destroyed the room in a fit and stormed off before I could stop him. The management was pissed and kicked us out." Monotone voice for a monotone face; blank and devoid of emotion, that was Killua right now. Zepile's frown deepened, forehead creased and stiff. "Tomorrow we leave for Greed Island and I can't even fucking find him because he decided to have a temper tantrum like a little kid and leave. He's such a stinking idiot, it's ridiculous." Then he laughed, a cold, deathly laugh; hollow and numb, betraying the shell in which Killua has built up in dealing with Gon's new addiction.

All crumbling down. Right in front of him.

"Isn't that stupid?" He continued before Zepile could even fit in a word, his tears blending with the rain droplets on his cheek. There was no stopping him now that the dam was starting to burst. No way in Hell. He never intended to get this far into detail with their temporary cohort, but he couldn't back down now. "It is dumb. How we're fighting over something so undeniably stupid that something like this had to happen? Gon just up and leaves and what? For drugs. For fucking DRUGS. You know that's all he ever cares about now, right? He only ever talks about it every five seconds when I'm not interrupting his smokes. He cracks, like, ten or twenty joints a day. Everything we own reeks of that shit. Isn't that so stupid?"

Pop. Click. Fizzle.

Out of nowhere, Killua had a can of beer at hand and was chugging it down in huge, greedy gulps with Zepile standing off to the side, gaping huge holes through the white-haired teen's skull.

"Since when did you drink?!"

"Fuck." Killua's foul mouth lived on when he swallowed the last of his beverage, crushed the can into a flat, pitiful lump of its former self, and discarded it out on the streets as he walked on, not bothering to look back at his litter. "Who cares. Who fucking cares, anyway? Why should I care? I don't care. I don't care one bit."

Zepile was reaching out, like maybe, just maybe he'd have the confidence to grab hold of the other; stop him maybe from something bad he'd fear may happen at any moment. But he was five paces behind Killua and there was no chance he'd be reaching him in his current state. "Killua-"

"What?"

"I think you really need to stop this-"

Killua whirled around, fangs and claws at the ready, a hiss on the breath caught between his lips; when he spotted him. Spotted Gon.

With a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, Gon's eyes widened. He was no more then twenty feet behind Zepile clutching something to his chest, blacked-out in the darkness of the unforgiving, chilly night, before he was nothing but a blur as he took off running in the opposite direction.

"Shit- GON-!"

"Wait, Killua! Stop!" Zepile spun on his heel, hand still outstretched and reaching, but he grappled with air and found nothing for his hand to grasp as Killua sprinted off in the direction Gon went. He dropped his hand and sighed, head shaking some of the water in his hair a moment until he took off after them, no where close to matching their speed, but giving it his all regardless. "Damn kids. Leorio was right. They are a handful!"

A pain in the ass handful for certain.

"Gon!" Killua was in pursuit, just a couple feet away, as Gon's heavy forest green boots padded in the puddles forming on the pavement. Water was splashing every which way from their insane pace, causing random passerby people to cuss and shout at them, even swing a few limbs and miss for the hell of it. Killua felt one punch to his side travel all the way up his head; a pounding headache soon to come. He trailed behind Gon all the way until he took a swift turn and straight into an alleyway; a wrong move on his part as Killua had him cornered the second he stepped foot into that short, dead-end road. The foremost wall was too high for even Gon's unnatural climbing skills to ascend over.

It was no one but the two teenage boys now, standing each other down on opposite ends of the line. Neither backing out.

Killua was first to speak, taking one step forward as Gon matched with one of his own steps back. He rolled right into talking, unable to hold himself back as the panic and fear leeched off of him; forced him to his knees in submission, and proceeded to ramble on and on for the sake of relieving just an ounce of that pain. "Gon. What the hell are you doing? Where have you been? I've been looking for hours for you! What the fuck is your problem? Do you know how worried I was? I was freaking out so bad that I was so stinking close to-"

"Killua." Gon's voice broke the surface of Killua's disengaging, whirlwind of emotions casting like a haze on his mind; a noxious cloud of negativity worming its way in. Like how the drug wormed its way into their life, unbidden and unwanted. Gon was still the embodiment of light in Killua's world, even if his soul no longer carried that same quality. "Stay where you are."

"The hell? No!" Killua said instantly, trudging forward, but Gon's shout made him cease in his movements, eyes bulging.

"NO, KILLUA. YOU STAY THE HELL WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW OR ELSE!"

"..."

"Gon-"

"Be quiet, Killua, and listen to what I have to say."

The tremble in Gon's tone was unmistakable, even Killua could recognize the shift in pitch from a mile away and his ears were nowhere near the level Gon's were. But he heard it, and so, he stopped in his tracks, arms hanging loosely at his sides, jaw tight as teeth drew blood to his lips, his damp face moist with red on top of blue.

"Killua." Gon continued when his amber eyes made contact with sapphires. "I made the decision and I'm not going to participate in Greed Island."

Those words took several minutes to sink into Killua's mind, his chest, in his heart and he swallowed past the newly found lump there with a grimace. "What?" He started out slow, deliberately licking the blood from his lips. There was a pit in his stomach; a hard, lancing stone settled there that made him feel sick, nauseous; hurt. And Killua just couldn't fathom why, really. His brain was slow to process it as he gulped, twitching in place. "What did you just say?"

"I'm not going to Greed Island."

"Fucking Hell, Gon, WHAT?" Killua all but shouted, lurching forward and his claws retracted, glistening in the light of the nearby street lamp. Gon's words were finally catching up to him and they were not good in the least. "Are you fucking kidding me?What do you mean you're not going?!"

"I just said-"

"Screw what you said!" Tossing up his arms, Killua stomped right over towards Gon and snatched him up by the collar of his jacket, yanking him to his feet and causing Gon to drop the stuffed back pack he was carrying in his arms. Killua leaned in close, venom on every drip drop of his words, all hissing and baring their fangs in Gon's direction now. But as quickly as it had started, it was falling away towards something else entirely and that was what Killua dreaded the most. "You can't tell me you're suddenly quitting now. Not after all the shit we went through to get here. This is Greed Island. We spent so much money and so much time trying to track it down and we finally have our spot to play and you're telling me now you don't wanna?! Do you know how much effort I put into helping you through this? All the stuff I did? For what? NOTHING? This sucks. This fucking sucks! It hurts! Damnit, it HURTS! Fuck. FUCK ALL OF THIS!"

"Killua-"

"NO. NO. FUCK." Killua repeated and dropped Gon unceremoniously to the ground, not caring if it hurt his scrawny ass either, as he glowered down at his friend with a look that could kill at first glance. His voice was rising in pitch the longer he repeated himself but Killua couldn't bring himself to care. " SHUT UP! No. No. No. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO!"

He was in denial, he knew, but couldn't bare to tell himself just that; clutching frantically at his shaggy mane of white hair, eyes strung out and pupils dilated. Killua fell to his knees, slamming his fists into the puddling water in front of him and screamed out as loud as he possibly could, voice cracking the throw of emotion being unleashed. The umbrella in Killua's hands fell to the side, clattering onto the ground and abandoned now. Zepile's heavy foot falls landed behind them in the alleyway and he stopped to stare in the same shocked awe Gon wore, rendered paralyzed in that instant.

Tears were flooding cerulean eyes like a overflowing river, pooling on his cheeks in the same way the rain from above had. They were dripping fast to the ground Killua stared upon, doe-eyed and sniffling to breathe as small sobbing sounds ripped from his throat against his better will. There was no fighting it now; it was too late to stop himself. Killua spared one last look up towards Gon, seeing those amber eyes locked in his direction, frozen in the same fear Killua was facing. Images flashed before his own vision; of times when Gon was sitting in that same exact position, beaming proudly, laughing carelessly, downright happy. They jumbled together into an incomprehensible blur, tangling between those pleasant moments to the dreary one laid out before him now; dead.

It stole every last vestiges of hopefulness in Killua's poor, pathetic soul, that he dropped his head to the pavement and screamed out another sob again, louder then the first, pounding his fists again and again into the cement until his knuckles bruised and his nails bled.

Why? Why did it come to this? How could it have gotten this bad?

What did I do wrong?

It's my fault.

Was it because of me? Because I didn't stop him?

Did I do something to change his mind?

When did it become like this?

It's my fault.

Was I wrong? Was it me?

Why now? What about his dreams? His goals?

What about finding his father? Ging?

What changed?

It's all my fault.

Gon.

It's not you. It never was you, was it?

It was me. Right?

GON!

IT'S ALL MY FAULT-!

Killua was on the verge of screaming out again, to throw it all away, to give his life to the death dealer knocking on his door; when something completely unexpected happened. His entire body had been shaking so violently and uncontrollably that his limbs were weakening by the second, threatening to pull him the rest of the way to the hard, unforgiving cement below. If it weren't for Gon's strong, overbearing arms grabbing hold of him, grappling him into an embrace, Killua surely would have fell to the depths below.

The next moment Killua managed to blink his sight back into some semblance of normalcy, he was staring at Gon's green-clad shoulder, being cradled with an astounding gentleness he'd never experienced before. Warm, soothing arms wound around his back and middle, clinging almost, and squeezing him against the others chest so hard his own frantic, pounding heartbeat resonated with a much more calmer one. Gon's ticklish breath was billowing against his ear, the scratch of a bit of stubble and hair brushing his cold cheeks, making him shiver unintentionally.

But, most of all, he could feel Gon's smile on him from miles of away, focused on him entirely; and in that moment he'd never experience, he still couldn't clutch onto the idea that this was reality and not a dream.

"Gon..?"

His words died on his tongue, hoarse and strangled like the cry that had bubbled up and been frozen in time, and Gon's cheek brushed over his, a whisper of his own name hot against his skin like a metal brand, everlasting. Killua shuddered helplessly, sniffling on his own tears, before he buried his own face against Gon's exposed, offered shoulder and inhaled deep the faintest scent of pine and earth buried behind that bleached, sweet falsetto of those drugs. His nails dragged across the soft, soaking wet fabric of Gon's jacket, but he didn't care as long as he could hold Gon like this; be held like this, locked in this moment together.

The tears that came, harder then before; Killua didn't fight to stop this time, and Gon hugged him tighter then he'd ever been held before. "Killua." His name again, another shiver. "I'm so, so sorry."

"What..?"

It was hard for Killua to talk coherently, words slurred, but Gon shook his head and rocked them back and forth, rubbing circles over his trembling, shaken up form. "I didn't realize I was hurting you this much. I really was hurting Killua a lot, wasn't I? I was being stupid- I never- I just didn't get it. But seeing you like this, seeing Killua cry, really opened my eyes. It made me realize something, too."

Killua struggled to ask 'What' but Gon beat him to the punch, placing a chaste kiss to his brow when he pulled away to do so, lips firmly planted against his forehead. Killua's blue eyes widened, a gasp dying out on his lips, and Gon drew back just enough to speak again; that familiar smile back on his mouth again. "You are right. I was losing sight of my original plans. I do want to find Ging. I do want to play Greed Island. With you. I want to do those things with you. And I guess I was just being a totally selfish idiot about it that I made you upset. I'm sorry. I never knew how much I was hurting you."

"Gon."

Killua buried his face further into Gon's broad, open and waiting torso and murmured, shaking his head back and forth. "No." He said, but it was the lowest sounding word he could force out, not letting go this time. He wouldn't let go, he promised himself.

"Killua. I promise I'll do better from now on, okay? So, I hope you can forgive me. We'll do Greed Island together this time. And I'll make amends."

Killua couldn't forgive him, not yet. Even though this was Gon and for Gon he would do absolutely anything. Almost. But the promise was something else entirely. Killua knew he could keep his promise, for the most part and for the time being, but as Gon's own vow reached his ears; he wondered in the back corners of his shadowed, weary mind.

Would Gon really keep his promise, too?

"I promise, Killua."

Killua really hoped so even if half of him really doubted it.