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Gon sleeping at Killua’s side never ceases to be a wonder. Gon, curled up so contentedly on Killua’s chest, his face so peaceful, his breathing free and even, makes Killua’s chest clench with such desperate affection. Because Killua’s not a fool; he knows exactly what he is. A killer. And Gon knows it too, has witnessed it firsthand, has seen Killua tear out a man’s still-beating heart with a smile. And yet somehow he isn’t afraid. Somehow he sleeps with an arm slung over Killua’s waist as if Killua weren’t a hardly-contained wild animal, as if he trusts Killua not to hurt him. As if he’s somehow more peaceful knowing Killua’s at his side.
It’s so undeserved, the trust. The affection. The kindness. The way Gon strokes Killua’s hair gently as if Killua were some soft, fragile creature and didn’t have the blood of generation after generation of killers pulsing just beneath his skin. It’s so undeserved, and yet Killua can’t help but enjoy it, Gon sleeping beside him and pressing a kiss to the palm of his hand and holding him as if he needed protection. He tries his hardest not to enjoy it--really he does--but he can never quite manage to stop himself.
Gon stirs slightly, gently rubbing his face into Killua’s chest with a sigh and Killua is almost certain it was the frantic pounding of his heart that woke him.
Slowly, Gon blinks up at Killua, and then all at once smiles, relaxed and sleepy and so unmistakably happy. Killua inhales, sharp and unexpected. Gon’s woken to Killua at his side and he’s happy to see him.
“Hi,” Gon murmurs, not moving his head from where it rests on Killua’s chest.
“Hi yourself,” Killua says. And then, because he’s allowed to do these sorts of things now, he gently brushes Gon’s hair back from his forehead. Gon sighs.
“You smell good,” he murmurs.
Killua’s face flushes in spite of himself.
Gon sighs again, relaxed and contented, and then turns his head so slightly to press a kiss to Killua’s chest, just above his heart.
“Mm,” Gon hums. “You make a good nap pillow. I slept so well.”
Killua doesn’t trust himself to speak, not with Gon all sleepy and gentle and content and affectionate and kissing Killua again. And again. Up his chest, through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Then along his collarbone and up his neck, just how Gon knows he likes. And across his jaw and over his cheek before Gon finally kisses his mouth, so softly and so slowly.
“Hi,” Gon says, smiling against Killua’s mouth.
“You said that already,” Killua mumbles. Gon giggles and rubs his nose against Killua’s cheek.
And then all at once, the air shifts ever so slightly and Gon is no longer sleepy and lazy and relaxed. He brings his hands up to cradle Killua’s face and kisses him, hard and passionate and urgent.
Killua’s stomach fills with the most perfect, hot tension. He likes kissing Gon. Quite a lot. Gon’s mouth is always so warm and soft and he’s always so gentle and so intense all at once and Killua’s head just spins, hardly able to keep up with Gon’s hands in his hair and his lips on his skin and his breath so warm and soft on his face.
Killua kisses back, bringing his hands up to loop around Gon’s neck and pull him down harder, and Gon laughs slightly against Killua’s mouth and then slowly trails his hands down to stroke Killua’s waist. Killua never knows what it is about the light, gentle pressure of Gon’s hands on his waist, just barely grazing his skin through his t-shirt, that makes his heart pound so frantically in his chest, but it happens every time. And Gon knows this, of course. Knows exactly what he does to Killua with something so chaste and simple and he takes full advantage of it, hands gently skimming down Killua’s sides as he smirks against Killua’s mouth.
And then Gon reaches up and interlaces his fingers with Killua’s, pulling his hands down from where they’re looped around Gon’s neck, squeezing them tight, before he grabs Killua’s wrists in his hands and pins them to the pillow above Killua’s head, holding firm.
For just a moment, Killua’s heart stops.
He freezes.
He goes abruptly cold with terror.
And then it happens quite suddenly, like it has countless times before.
All at once, Killua simply detaches. He steps outside his body. He stops feeling, stops seeing, stops thinking. He merely breathes, as slowly and evenly as he can, and holds perfectly still and prepares himself to endure. He isn’t Killua anymore, not really. And that’ll make it easier. Whatever’s coming. When he’s no longer Killua, the pain doesn’t hurt quite so much. The terror isn’t quite so acute. He can observe this person, this body, enduring whatever cruelty it’s subjected to from a safe distance. He’ll hurt for a while, and Killua will be outside of it. And then when it’s over, he’ll come back.
He doesn’t fight against the person restraining him. He knows better than that by now. If someone’s holding him down, it’ll only make things worse if he resists. He’ll lie perfectly still and wait for what’s to come. Pain, almost certainly. He’s been here a thousand times before, hands or manacles tight on his wrists, holding him as still as they can get him so he stops thrashing and kicking and making such an unnecessary scene about the whole thing.
Killua will lie perfectly still. He won’t fight. He’ll try to do well, try to make it as easy on himself as he can. He always goes and makes things so much harder than they have to be. He knows this, and he tries his utmost not to. He’ll endure this and then it’ll be over and he’ll stop floating a few feet above his body. He’ll come back once it’s safe.
“Killua?” a voice says.
Killua holds perfectly still.
“Killua, are you okay?” the voice asks. It’s familiar, but Killua can’t place it exactly.
“I’m fine,” Killua hears himself say.
That’s the right answer, isn’t it? He’s always supposed to be fine. He’s supposed to take whatever’s given to him, he’s supposed to bear it silently and without complaint, without all the retching and screaming and begging that everyone finds so tiresome. So Killua did well, didn’t he? He gave the right answer. That should help, should make whatever’s coming not quite as bad as it might be.
“No, you’re not,” the voice says, and Killua stiffens.
Idiot. He can’t even answer a simple question right, can he? He’s only gone and made it worse on himself, and he has no one else to blame.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Killua hears himself say. “It’s fine.”
Please, let that be the right answer.
“Killua, do you know where you are?”
Damn it. That’s the problem with this, the whole detaching business. He forgets exactly where he is, what day it is, forgets who it is who’s hurting him. It helps, but it makes it tricky when they start asking questions like this.
“It’s fine,” Killua hears himself say. “You can go ahead.”
All at once, the pressure leaves his wrists, whoever was holding him abruptly releasing their grasp. But Killua doesn’t move from where he’s lying, hands still above his head. It’s most likely a test, and goddamnit it, he’s going to pass it. He’s going to prove he knows how to endure. He won’t get up and run away. He’ll lie perfectly still and he’ll wait.
“Killua,” the voice says, higher and shakier than before. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry,” Killua hears himself say. “But it’s okay. Just go ahead.”
Killua doesn’t mean to frighten anyone. He doesn’t mean to make this worse. He knows no one likes hurting him. They don’t get any enjoyment from it. It’s just a necessary evil. So he doesn’t want to make it any harder on them, what has to be done.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t know what you mean. What do you think I’m going to do to you?”
Killua’s quiet. He doesn’t want to risk getting another question wrong, doesn’t want to suffer the consequences.
“You’re not really here, are you?” the voice says, and it sounds strangely sad. “Okay, then let’s try something else. Can you do something for me?"
“Of course.”
“Can you look around the room? Can you tell me what you see? Just five things, okay? I just need you to tell me five things you see in the room.”
It’s hard. When Killua detaches, he stops seeing. He stops being aware of where he is, what he’s doing, what’s being done to him. And it helps with the pain, but it makes questions like this harder. He’ll try though. He knows what happens when he can’t answer one of their questions.
With a tremendous effort, Killua pulls himself down from where he’s floating above his body. Quite slowly and deliberately, he drags himself back into his own skin, slipping back into his own hands like gloves. It’ll make it hurt worse, whatever’s coming, but if they’ve asked him to do it, he’ll obey.
“That’s it, Killua. You’re doing so good.”
That’s a good thing, isn’t it? That he did it right? That means it won’t hurt as much, doesn’t it? He’ll keep this up, he’ll get farther back into his body, he’ll earn more praise. All if it’ll just make whatever’s coming a bit less brutal.
“Alright, five things, okay? Just tell me five things you see.”
Killua blinks, looking around him. The world is still hazy and far away, but he can see it if he tries especially hard.
“The ceiling fan,” he begins.
“Good. That’s really good.”
Killua takes a deep breath.
“The walls. They’re light blue. And the closet door. It’s white.”
“That’s fantastic. You’re doing great. Two more, okay?”
“The window. The light coming in is sort of orange. And the curtains. They’re white too.”
“That was so good,” Gon says softly. Because it’s Gon in front of him. It was Gon the whole time, wasn’t it? Killua blinks. He wasn’t back home. He was here, in the apartment. He was safe. For all of it.
“Do you know where you are now?” Gon asks gently.
Killua looks away, face burning.
“Yeah, sorry,” Killua mumbles. “That was stupid of me. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t say it was stupid. Because it was a lot of things, but it wasn’t stupid.”
Killua can hardly bear the humiliation. Gon was just kissing him, was doing something he likes, for God’s sake, and Killua just had to go and panic on him, didn’t he?
“Hey,” Gon says softly, stroking a hand down Killua’s cheek. “Can you tell me what just happened? I just want to understand.”
Killua sighs and sits up, back against the headboard.
“I just… I don’t know… Sometimes I kind of…”
Killua trails off. It’s hard to explain, the detaching. He’s never really tried to put words to it before.
“It was when I grabbed your wrists, right?” Gon asks. Killua pauses a moment, then nods.
“It’s silly, but my brain and my body, they don’t always really understand each other. In my mind, I know I’m here. I know I’m safe. But my body doesn’t really know that. To my body, I’m just being held down.”
“And then you’re not here anymore, right? You’re back there. With your family.”
Killua sighs.
“I don’t know when I first started doing it, but it’s been going on for a while. I just kind of... step outside of my body, I guess. It’s like I’m floating outside of myself. I forget where I am and what’s going on and who’s with me. And it helps. With the pain. And the fear. They get all hazy and far away, like I’m dreaming. So it hurts less. Because it’s no longer happening to me. Because I’m not really me anymore.”
Gon flips over Killua’s hand and begins gently tracing along his palm and down each of his fingers, slow and feather-light. It makes Killua feel nice and relaxed and pleasantly shivery and a bit more of the tension eases out of him.
“But I’m sorry,” he continues. “I shouldn’t have done it just now. I should have understood that it was you. I should have understood that I wasn’t in any danger. Because I trust you. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. So I should act like it.”
“Hey,” Gon says, lacing his fingers in Killua’s and giving his hand a squeeze. “Don’t do that, okay? Don’t blame yourself or make this about whether I feel trusted or whatever. Because I know you trust me. But it’s like you said--you forget where you are and who’s with you and everything. It didn’t matter that you trust me, because I wasn’t me anymore. Not to you. To you, I was just someone trying to restrain you.”
Killua stares determinedly at the bedsheets, humiliation twisting at his insides.
“If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me,” Gon continues. “I should’ve used my head. It sounds really stupid, but I thought you would find it hot or something. If I held down your hands and kissed you. But if I had stopped to think for two seconds, I probably would’ve realized that was a bad idea, given everything I know about you. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry I frightened you.”
For a long moment, they’re quiet.
“I’m just tired of it,” Killua murmurs at last. “It’s been years. I’m tired of them still being in my head. I just want it all to be over.”
Gon takes Killua’s hand and presses a kiss to the inside of his wrist.
“I know. And I want to tell you it will be. I want to say that there will be a day when it’ll all be behind you, when you won’t ever feel scared again. But I don’t think it works like that. I think you still carry it with you, but you just find a way to do it that doesn’t feel quite as heavy.”
Gon reaches up and gently tucks a lock of hair behind Killua’s ear.
“And it’s always easier for two people to carry something rather than one, right?” Gon says.
Killua could cry if he let himself, because Gon is kind in the sort of way that defies reason, the sort of way that makes Killua’s heart stretch larger and larger inside of his chest. Gon is looking at Killua with earnest, honest eyes and it’s so clear that he means it. With everything he is, Gon means it. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbow and he flexes his hands and crouches beside Killua and he’ll carry whatever Killua asks him to, from here to the ends of the earth, if only Killua says the word.
“Yeah,” Killua says at last, his voice soft and hesitant. “With two people, it probably is.”