Hunter x Hunter - Existential Wall Fic

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This fic is one of a pair written for chain_of_fics. Before I go on, a quick comm update:

1. I finished tagging all the entries! By author and genre and series and rating and pairing type!
2. To celebrate, I made pie graphs!
3. And completely changed the namescheme on the tags!
4. And also, the community layout and sidebar! -- in other words I went a little nuts. But you can't tell me this page isn't beautiful.

This fanfic is a little weird. I totally blame jaebi_lit for providing an such an existentialist prompt. Written without looking back -- but I had to do Killua/Gon, even if it turned out to be bad Killua/Gon, because it would just be WRONG to only write Kurapika/Leorio.


Title: The Wall (Killua/Gon version)
Rated: PG-13 for violent undertones
Wordcount: 664
Notes: Loosely based on this symbolic personality test. Which you should read if you want this to make any sense (although it probably won't anyway, ummmmm sorry).
Also: One of a pair with this Kurapika/Leorio fic.

They rounded a ridge and there it was, just as Killua had known it would be.

"Wow," said Gon, "that thing’s huge."

"I’ve seen bigger," Killua lied. Not even the gates at Kukuru Mountain were as massive as these, or as solidly imposing. Grey iron and highly polished, the gates shone as if they were new; but they didn’t look new, they looked ancient. The wall grew out of them like cancer, great irregular arches and grills of rusted brown metal. It extended from one end of the plateau to the other, and further – down into the canyons and up again on the other sides.

Everywhere along the wall there were jagged exposed edges, hidden crevices, pillars to duck behind and shadows to duck into -- an assassin’s playground. Killua looked at over to Gon, who was practically drooling, and had the sudden urge to hit him.

So he did.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"Nothing."

"So," Gon said, a little too brightly, "do we climb over it, or do we try the gates? Although it almost looks like we could squeeze through those gaps and-"

"No," Killua said. "It doesn't."

Gon just looked at him, then nodded. "Okay, so going through is out. I’m not sure we’d have fit anyway." (It was possible, Killua knew, but only if you were willing to leave pieces of yourself behind. Look up, you idiot, he wanted to say. Does it look like it ever rains here? What kind of liquid do you think rusts this thing? I’ll give you a hint, not water. But somehow the words were all stuck in his throat.)

Meanwhile Gon was already trying the gates. "Hey, Killua, give me a hand here!"

Killua pushed half-heartedly, Gon pushed enthusiastically, and after nine or ten minutes the iron gave a half-inch. Gon stopped to wipe at the sweat in his eyes with his shirt collar and the gates swung shut again.

"Aww, man!" Gon was suddenly struck by a thought. "Killua, are you even trying?"

"Of course I am," Killua said.

Gon looked at him, then nodded. (Stop accepting everything you're told, Killua wanted to say, but couldn't because truthfully, he liked Gon that way. Even if it wasn't good for Gon.) "Okay. Maybe we should climb over instead."

Enough was enough, Killua thought. "Look, Gon, I know you want to go forward, but is this really necessary? You can tell this thing is bad news, right? Let’s just drop it."

"No, there are enough pieces sticking out that it really shouldn’t be a problem to-"

"Those pieces are sharp, idiot. You’ll cut your hands off if you try to climb them."

"Oh yeah."

Gon looked crestfallen. Killua hastened to reassure him, then caught himself. The last thing Gon needed was encouragement. "And that’s not what I meant! It isn't worth it. Even if we made it to the other side..."

Gon looked at him curiously.

"...even if we did, it’s not somewhere you want to be. Trust me."

Gon tapped one foot against the ground as he considered. Killua dug his fingers into his palm, hoping he'd see reason. If Gon decided to go through with this he’d have no choice but to stop him; and he was really not looking forward to hauling his best friend’s unconscious body back over the cliffs they’d been climbing with both hands all morning.

"Killua?"

"Yeah?" He sounded thoughtful, that was a good sign.

"Look that way. What do you see?"

Killua blinked. "Rocks?"

"How about over there?"

"More rocks."

"What about back the way we came?"

"Rocks and the path we climbed up on. What’s your point?"

Gon pointed. "On the other side of that wall, there’s something that isn’t more rocks. The path goes forward here. There’s nothing but cliffs to either side of us. If we turn around now, we’ll only be able to go back the way we came."

"So?"

Gon just looked at him. "I want to catch up with my dad," he said. "What do you want to do?"

And they stood there, and they looked at each other, and Killua thought about all the time he’d spent hidden in the rusted iron, before he'd met Gon. Standing in Death's shadow, never far enough within the wall to see what was on the other side, but never quite emerging either. Leaving pieces of himself behind.

Until Gon.

"I want to follow you, I guess." Even there (especially there).

***

END (Interpretation: THE WALL = DEATH. See here.)