Work Text:
Leorio wakes up to the smell of antiseptic and a sliver of light creeping in from his bedroom door, and a silence that means his fan has turned off sometime in the middle of the night.
Or maybe the early parts of the night. Leorio squints at his window. The sky is a gray that makes it impossible to tell, an odd suspension in time. He doesn’t feel particularly well-rested, but then that doesn’t say much. He hasn’t been sleeping well lately.
Leorio follows the light out to the hall and then into his bathroom. The tile is refreshingly cool underneath his feet, smooth in contrast to the sticky humidity that seems to surround everything during the summer.
Kurapika looks up at him from where he’s pressed himself against the cabinet, one knee propped up and the other leg splayed out with the fabric of his slacks pushed way up. There’s a smear of blood dragging itself down from his cheekbones to the line of his jaw, dashes of red around his collar. His hands, busy with winding a bandage around his thigh, still.
“Didn’t want to wake you,” Kurapika says, presumably in explanation of why he’s administering treatment to himself when there’s a trained medical almost-professional a call away. He leans his head back and lets his hands drop, the set of his shoulders relaxing into something less severe as Leorio crowds quietly into his space.
“You should have,” Leorio says shortly, kneeling down and focusing on reminding himself that Kurapika can’t be hurt that badly, if he’s made it here alright.
He examines Kurapika with careful hands and Kurapika gives him a list of injuries, the occasional pained breath snatching away at his words. “It’s worse than it looks,” he’s fond of saying. It’s true today, since the only things that need serious attention are his thigh and knuckles. It is not at all soothing.
Kurapika’s done a good job of cleaning his wounds already, but he doesn’t protest when Leorio does it again and rebandages his leg. The skin of his thigh is angry and red and Leorio tells him to be gentle with it. He is equally as mindful as he ghosts over Kurapika’s split knuckles and rubs ointment over them.
“I thought you were being more careful now,” Leorio says, pressing into the tenderness of the skin in the divots of Kurapika’s hands and watching the way it makes him wince. It doesn’t take two people to do any of this. But it makes him feel better, when he can help.
“This is careful,” Kurapika says, meeting his gaze. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“Barely,” Leorio sighs. “Was this for work?”
“My own project.”
Kurapika sits up properly before Leorio can stop him and then his head tips forward until his forehead is pressed to the juncture in between Leorio’s neck and shoulder. Leorio doesn’t know if it’s a purposeful action or a product of Kurapika’s exhaustion. The weight of another person should be too warm, but instead it’s only reassuring.
“Go back to bed, Leorio,” Kurapika murmurs. “I’ll clean up.”
Leorio scoffs and lets himself thread his fingers through the strands at the back of Kurapika’s head. “Like hell you will,” he says. Did Kurapika not hear anything about not straining himself? “It’s my bathroom.”
“It’s my mess,” Kurapika says, but he doesn’t resist as Leorio leans him back against the cabinet, his grip on Kurapika’s shoulders gentle. He remains there, pliant, eyes slipping closed every so often as Leorio cleans up the blood on the tiles and the counter, and throws away used bandages.
“You’ll ruin your neck if you fall asleep like that,” Leorio says, most of the sharpness bled out of his voice by now. “And your back.”
Kurapika blinks at him, the upward tilt of his mouth barely there and jagged. He looks very young like this, the closest to being at ease he usually ever allows himself in Leorio’s presence.
“I’ve done worse,” he promises, and closes his eyes again.
The thing about summer, on top of it being obnoxiously hot, is that something about the heat makes time go nebulous.
It’s not the worst thing in the world. Leorio sits in the remarkably poorly air-conditioned clinic he’s working in over the summer and sometimes his shifts pass in the blink of an eye. Other days, it feels like he keeps looking at his watch and the way the minute hand never seems to move, and the last five minutes before he gets to go home drags on and on. It’s relative.
With Kurapika, it seems like time stretches on for far longer than it should.
He doesn’t feel like talking most of the time, when he stops by. They can talk about Leorio’s day, about the show they both watch only whenever it happens to be on, but never about anything that actually matters. There is only so close a person can get to Kurapika, and apparently that closeness extends to the type of domesticity maintained with a roommate that is rarely ever there before it extends to things like feelings and emotions and Kurapika’s revenge scheme.
Kurapika is sitting on the couch when Leorio comes home in a manner that can only be described as lounging. His suit jacket is gone and his tie has been loosened, and the way he’s stretched out makes Leorio believe that he could have just been napping. There is a ray of late afternoon sun striping over Kurapika’s head that must be making him uncomfortably warm and he just lets it happen, eyes half-lidded.
Leorio slips his shoes off and sets his bag on the counter. He peers at the television screen.
“How long have you been watching this,” he says after a moment, blinking as the woman on screen launches into an effusive declaration of love for her tall, dark, and handsome love interest. The setting looks vaguely familiar. It’s possible that this is the drama Kurapika has been watching on and off throughout the past month.
“Hi Leorio,” Kurapika greets, sitting up and winding his limbs back into himself so Leorio can sit next to him. He checks his watch idly and looks briefly horrified before stretching over Leorio’s lap to get the remote. The TV turns off with a click. “Enough.”
“Hey now,” Leorio says. “That was the best part.”
“The best part is the credits,” Kurapika corrects, and when Leorio laughs some of the blankness slips out of his eyes. His body remains in a deceptive, orchestrated illusion of relaxation. “How was work?”
Leorio stretches his feet out on the coffee table the way he knows Kurapika hates and waits to be scolded. “The usual,” he says, when no retribution comes. “How are you?”
Kurapika inches his shoulders up the slightest bit, barely a response, and his eyes skitter away from Leorio’s. “Well enough,” he says, likely only because Leorio has started calling him out when he lies and this, at least, is probably true. But then, the two of them have very different standards for wellness.
Leorio eyes him carefully, still unsure of how to navigate the listlessness that overtakes Kurapika occasionally. His own, private guess is that it happens whenever Kurapika begins to doubt himself and the urgency that’s kept him going since the massacre slips away, when he starts to question if he should be doing what he is. When he crosses his own lines.
“You’re alright,” Leorio says, and he means it.
“Maybe,” Kurapika says in a voice that sounds like he doesn’t quite agree, face more shadowed than it should have any right to be when it’s this bright outside.
They sit together for a stretch of time he swears could be any length from thirty minutes to half a day until Kurapika starts to genuinely relax again, the warmth against Leorio’s side going boneless. He turns the TV on again and switches the channels until Kurapika tells him to stop on a reality show, and then they argue over whose favorite contestant is going to win until both of their favorites are kicked off in the second round.
When it starts to get dark, Leorio looks at his watch regrettably. Kurapika declines his offer of dinner but does kick Leorio’s feet off the coffee table on his way out. He promises to come around again soon, acting generally like a person again even if there’s still something haunted in his expression, and Leorio doesn’t press the issue.
“You’d better,” he threatens, wrenching himself up and to the kitchen. He waves a dishcloth at Kurapika in warning. Bribery doesn’t work on him.
“Ha,” Kurapika says, and then the door shuts behind him and he disappears for a month.
The spare key, which Leorio has given up on getting Kurapika to carry with him but still leaves out in case Kurapika changes his mind, remains on the coffee table.
Kurapika’s reintegration into Leorio’s life isn’t seamless, because the two of them have never made anything easy, but it’s something surprisingly close to it. Leorio had built up their reunion in his head countless times: Kurapika showing up at his door when it was all over or picking up the phone one day out of the blue. Maybe all it would be was Leorio going to the grocery store and seeing a shock of familiar blond hair; Leorio yelling and Kurapika yelling back, and both of them apologizing at the end. He’s an optimist, for all that he likes to pretend not to be.
The reality of it is that one day he's walking home from the bus stop and someone falls into step with him, and when he looks up to see who it is he trips out of shock.
A hand reaches out to steady him. “I see your spatial awareness hasn’t improved at all,” Kurapika says, which is so Kurapika Leorio doesn’t even bother wondering if he’s dreaming. At least his subconsciousness knows to make Kurapika nicer.
“You asshole,” Leorio says, drinking in the sight of him greedily and not even worrying if he’s staring too much.
Learning to exist again as Kurapika and Leorio and not as two people that have forgotten how to talk to each other is predictably stilted and awkward. They settle very easily into certain things and others are more painful.
“When I’m done,” Kurapika tells him once, “I’m going to come back properly.”
“Done with…?”
The look Kurapika sends him begs for patience.
“Ah,” Leorio says, eyes darting over to the bag by Kurapika’s feet, under the kitchen table. “Right.” He frowns. “Wait. What do you mean by ‘properly'?”
He’d assumed that Kurapika meant that he would be more present, something more concrete than their current scattered meetings, when the responsibility of reclaiming the Eyes was gone. The pensive look on Kurapika’s face is making him rethink that.
“I mean, I’m not really here right now, am I. I don’t think I’m the same person you called back then,” Kurapika says, the first time he’s acknowledged the calls at all. “I don’t — I’ve changed a lot.”
“People change,” Leorio says, watching him carefully. “It’s normal. Look at me — hell, look at Killua or Gon. It’s still us though. It’s still you.”
Kurapika’s face twists with self-loathing, though he tries to smooth it over. “I wouldn’t know what’s happened,” he says. “I haven’t seen Killua or Gon in a while.”
Leorio’s trying to figure out how to respond in a way that's helpful and Kurapika is letting him do that when the phone rings. Kurapika doesn’t pick up but alarm visibly settles into his body when he sees the caller ID, tension winding itself up into his neck, his jaw, his teeth.
“You need to go?” Leorio asks, rising up from the table with him. It’s a stupid question: Kurapika is pulling his jacket back on, one hand wrapped around his bag again, and headed for the door with an urgency that worries Leorio.
“Yes,” Kurapika sighs. He looks so weary now, always. “Emergency. I’ll — see you soon though, if that’s fine.”
“Of course,” Leorio says, something thick and awful crawling up his throat. “Be careful.”
“I always am,” Kurapika lies. He gives Leorio a smile that’s probably meant to be reassuring before the door closes behind him.
This has stayed the same, at least: the silence Kurapika leaves behind is still as sprawling and distracting as it used to be.
“We seem to meet an awful lot in my bathroom,” Leorio says conversationally upon getting home and finding an unexpected guest half-shrouded in afternoon sun and general exhaustion. “Have you noticed that?”
“Ha ha,” Kurapika murmurs, parting his hair with a fine-toothed comb Leorio hadn’t even known was in the apartment, focused on his reflection with an intensity that Leorio rarely sees. If Kurapika is vain by nature, he does a very good job of pretending not to be. He points to the side of the counter that he isn’t leaning on without looking. “Could you get that for me?”
Leorio grabs the scissors — actual proper hair cutting shears, he notices — and then thinks again. Kurapika is a man of many talents but he isn’t sure this is one of them.
“You’re going to cut your hair,” he checks, “by yourself?”
“Only a trim,” Kurapika says, sounding marginally less patient. “I think I can manage it.”
Leorio curls a hand over the back of his own neck, feels the reassurance of skin and bone and sweat. “Let me,” he says.
“What?”
“Let me do it,” Leorio says. “I’m basically a doctor. Shouldn’t I have the hands for it?”
He waggles his fingers, which is maybe counterproductive to convincing Kurapika that his hands are steady. More late nights with his hands sticky with blood than he would like to remember, and now that Kurapika is back, too many of them happen when he’s not at the clinic.
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Kurapika informs him, even as he turns to gaze at him expectantly. “Well?”
They put an old towel on the ground and Leorio drags in a stool for Kurapika to sit on. He changes out of his work clothes and makes Kurapika do the same because he refuses to help him try to get blond hair out of his suit jacket later.
One of the changes that Leorio had noticed when he’d first seen him again, along with the way that Kurapika seemed to wear exclusively suits now and had less energy to be patient with people who asked stupid questions, was the hair growth. Kurapika’s hair is usually tied up now because it’s more comfortable in the heat, but he hadn’t gotten around to that during their first meeting and it had been long enough to spill over his shoulders and then some. Leorio combs through it with his fingers in a way that is horribly ineffective but very fulfilling.
“It’s not the longest it’s ever been,” Kurapika says, looking amused with his fascination. “I went through phases when I was young.”
Leorio snorts. He can imagine the kind of stubbornness Kurapika would have had, even then. “Did you like it?”
“It got in the way after a while. Too hard to manage.”
“Is that why you’re cutting it now?”
“I don’t know,” Kurapika tells him, good mood and expression flickering briefly. “I just felt like a change.”
If they were different people, or perhaps themselves in a different time, Leorio would bend down to kiss his hair and Kurapika would lean into it before telling him what was going on in his head. As they are now, Kurapika watches him as he continues to work through tangles and Leorio takes care not to tug on the strands too much.
“I don’t know how to do this at all,” Leorio says and Kurapika nods, because of course he did know that. It’s a wonder that Kurapika’s letting him do this at all.
“Don’t think about it too much,” Kurapika advises.
“I’m about as good at that as you are,” Leorio says, which is to say that neither of them are any good at it at all. “Are you sure you should be saying that to the guy who could potentially ruin your day every time you look in the mirror for the next month?”
The last part is a lie, if only because Kurapika is the type of person that looks good in everything.
“It’s you,” Kurapika says, “and it’s only hair.”
The first cut is barely one at all. Leorio snips a tiny length of blond from the front sections of Kurapika’s hair, fingers closing around the scissors before he really even thinks about it. They both watch the strands scatter to the ground.
“That being said,” Kurapika says, blinking at the floor with an expression that’s wholly unreadable, “I’m still going to be upset if you ruin it.”
Leorio pats his shoulder. “I’ll buy you a wig if I do,” he promises, “but you won’t need it.”
Kurapika requests it shoulder-length so Leorio obliges, mostly just trying to follow the existing lines of Kurapika’s hair once it becomes apparent that Kurapika probably knows just as little as Leorio does about cutting hair. He feels like he’s holding his breath the whole time when it comes time to trim Kurapika’s bangs, fingers fluttering anxiously over Kurapika’s face.
“I look the same,” Kurapika says when it’s done, sounding almost surprised. He smooths a strand between his fingertips and flips it upward, unfolding himself from the stool to get a better look in the mirror.
Younger, maybe, Leorio thinks. He has this association probably just because Kurapika’s hair was shorter when Leorio first met him.
“I like it,” he says, honestly.
Kurapika’s gaze flits away from his reflection to catch Leorio’s.
“You only say that because you cut it for me,” he says, the tips of his ears pink.
“Hello?” Leorio tries again.
He’s about to hang up — it’s an unknown number, so maybe he shouldn’t have picked up at all — when there’s a breath, ragged, and the quiet whisper of his name. Concern sets in immediately. He hasn’t heard from Kurapika in a while.
There are a million scenarios running through his head, each worse than the last.
“Hey,” Leorio says, trying not to let too much of his urgency show. His heart is beating way too fast. The nickname slips out of his mouth without permission. “Hey, sunshine.”
Another few deep breaths. “I’m okay,” Kurapika says, at a more normal volume. “Sorry.”
“You sound like you’ve been running,” Leorio says, hyper-aware of the strain in Kurapika's voice. “Are you—”
“Everything is taken care of,” he says firmly. “It just got — close.”
Close. It’s always like this: Kurapika on the edge of danger, on the edge of things he can’t come back from. Leorio knows better than to ask for more details, but Kurapika should know better than to expect Leorio not to ask for them when he could potentially be bleeding out in an alleyway somewhere.
“God. Are you hurt? Are you safe?”
“It’s not serious. I’ll be fine,” Kurapika says. “Really.”
“You called first,” Leorio says. “You never do that. I think that means things could’ve gotten very serious.”
Kurapika goes quiet for a stretch of time. Leorio checks to make sure the call hasn’t fallen.
“Yeah,” Kurapika says finally. “I guess you could say that. I don’t know. I just wanted to talk to you.”
Leorio doesn’t think Kurapika has ever “just wanted to talk” in his life, at least with Leorio, and he really doubts that he’s starting now. There’s something off about his voice other than just the hush. He’s pausing too much, like every word takes more effort to get out than it would normally.
“Are you really okay?” Leorio asks seriously.
Kurapika falls silent again, likely deciding whether to be truthful or not. “I’m not going to die on you,” he says, exhaling. “I’ll just hurt for a bit. It’s better than it could have been.”
Leorio doesn’t like to think about Kurapika in pain in any capacity but considering the line of his work, he nearly wilts with relief. The implication now becomes that Kurapika had been so close to death that he’d felt the need to call.
But he’s fine now, Leorio reminds himself. And getting yelled at will probably only stress Kurapika out more.
“Good. God, I’m going to have a head of gray hair by the time you retire,” Leorio tells him, some attempt at lightening the mood. He likes to think about things far in the future to compensate for how Kurapika talks like he’ll never live more than ten years.
“I would like to see it,” Kurapika says. “If dealing with me for the past year hasn’t given you any yet, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“That’s very optimistic of you.”
Kurapika laughs, at last, and while it still sounds more painful than anything, it seems genuine. “I know, I’m surprised too.”
“You’ve got a way out, right?”
“Melody’s called a car. Don’t worry so much.”
“You don’t make it easy,” Leorio mumbles, but if Kurapika hears, he doesn’t bother acknowledging it.
“Keep me company until it comes?” he asks instead, its own type of olive branch.
“Of course,” Leorio says. There isn’t any other answer.
The fan is broken again.
The fan is broken again but Leorio is sprawled out on the couch in a way that almost makes up for it and Kurapika is sitting on the floor with his back sat against one of his legs, and by all accounts it should be a nice, relaxing afternoon. It could be, even, but there’s something on the radio that they’re both not listening to and Kurapika hasn’t stopped worrying at the buttons on his shirt ever since he’s picked the lock on Leorio’s door and let himself in.
He’s been worrying, in general, for a while now.
Leorio turns the radio off.
“There’s something on your mind,” he says when Kurapika raises his eyebrows at him. “What’s up?”
“You first,” Kurapika says. “What? Did you really think I didn’t notice?”
Well. Leorio never claimed to have the same ability to mask emotion Killua and Kurapika seemed to have, though for how long they can maintain it is another thing entirely.
He contemplates the merits of trying to argue. There are some battles worth fighting and he isn't sure this one is. It’s been a few months since Kurapika came back and they’re probably due for an emotionally vulnerable conversation by now anyway. He comes to a decision.
“You never told me why you came back,” Leorio says, wincing at himself and how clumsy it sounds. “I don’t — I can’t imagine it’s very conducive to your goals,” he adds wryly.
Kurapika looks more thoughtful, thankfully, than offended. “Does it bother you,” he asks, “that I keep coming around?”
“What? No,” Leorio says. “Absolutely not. That’s not what I meant at all.”
Kurapika doesn’t look at him, though Leorio wishes he would. “You don’t owe me anything, you know,” he says, almost lightly. He doesn’t say anything more but the meaning is clear, and it hits in a place Leorio thought he didn’t have to worry about anymore.
“Our relationship has never been about owing,” Leorio tells him.
“Sorry,” Kurapika says. “I’m sorry. I know that. But you’re still — you’re very good to me, after it all.”
“You’re very dramatic,” Leorio says. “You act like you’ve done something terrible. All you’ve done is ignore some calls.”
“I made myself unreachable,” Kurapika says, damning, unhappy. “I abandoned you all. You called so many times and I couldn’t even give you anything back”
“You were mourning,” Leorio argues. “You’re still mourning! Yeah, maybe it was shitty of you. But it’s all been long forgiven.”
He pats the empty space next to him and Kurapika sighs, but rises up and sits next to him obligingly. This seems like the type of conversation they should have face to face.
Leorio swallows. “Are you — is this because you think you owe me? Why you’re coming around all the time now?”
“No,” Kurapika says, and then like it physically pains him, he confesses: “I just miss you. I miss you and I stick around, and then I leave again because I’m not supposed to be able to afford to do any of this.”
He takes in a deep, frustrated breath. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says, closing his fingers into fists. “I don’t know anything at all.”
“But you will,” Leorio says, smoothing over Kurapika’s hands without thinking. “You’re going to figure everything out, you always do. And — it’s not like I didn’t miss you, while you were gone.”
He feels himself frown. “Seriously. Kurapika, you should be able to have things you want. Your family… they wouldn’t want you to live like this.”
“But I need to do this first,” Kurapika says. “You get it, right?” He sighs. “The things I want,” he says. “They’re not things I’m allowed to ask for yet.” A pause. “From you, especially.”
“I would give them to you if only you did,” Leorio says. He barely had anything to hide, as things were, but here are all of his cards on the table for Kurapika to do with as he will. Kurapika snaps his head up, pure surprise, and though it’s tempting to try and take everything back, Leorio soldiers bravely on. He coughs awkwardly. “I would give you everything.”
“You don’t — you can’t mean that,” Kurapika says, voice hushed and solemn in a way that Leorio isn’t sure how to read. “You don’t even know what I would ask for.”
“Everything,” Leorio points out, “encompasses a lot of things.”
“You’re serious?” Kurapika asks.
“If I say yes, is that good or bad?” Leorio says, speech slightly garbled because of how now Kurapika has both hands on either side of his face as a means of making Leorio look him in the eye. His face is hot with embarrassment, vulnerability, affection.
“You never say anything you don’t mean,” Kurapika says, looking at him like he’s seeing him for the very first time, still in that same wondering tone.
“I don't,” Leorio agrees, reluctantly. He waits for one excruciating moment, then another.
“Good,” Kurapika says, and miraculously, unbelievably, his eyes crescent and he laughs.
Kurapika’s lifestyle is rather unpredictable just on the basis of being involved in generally illegal activity, but Leorio requests a little bit more structure in both of their lives and so Kurapika gets pretty good at sticking to a schedule. That being said, delays are far more common than anything so Leorio is understandably surprised to find Kurapika pacing in his kitchen, two days before he’s supposed to be back.
“I’m not pacing,” Kurapika greets him, coming to a standstill abruptly. He flounders for a second before sitting down at the table, seemingly having decided that to be the most explainable continuation of action.
“Hi, nice to see you too.” Leorio says dryly, giving him the usual once-over to check for any injuries. Other than the unusual embarrassment, Kurapika seems to be fine. “I didn’t even say anything.”
He hums, dropping off his bag by the couch and moving to join Kurapika. “Though if I had,” he adds, “it probably would have been something about your pacing. How was your assignment?”
Kurapika rolls his eyes but doesn’t rise to the bait. “Good,” he says. “It went well. I got a lead on another pair of Eyes.”
“That is good,” Leorio says, a little surprised. “Huh.”
Kurapika narrows his eyes. “What?”
“You only pace when you’re nervous,” Leorio says, “so I thought maybe something had gone wrong. But it seems to have gone better than expected.”
“I wasn’t pacing,” Kurapika insists again, futilely, before he sighs. “I let myself in.”
“Like, into the apartment? That’s fine,” Leorio says, though he’s sure Kurapika isn’t asking for forgiveness or trying to extract future permission. “Don’t you always?”
Kurapika dangles something in front of him in answer. “Not with these,” he says.
“Oh,” Leorio says. He hadn’t even noticed its absence. He wishes he had because now he’s curious about just how long Kurapika has kept them for. “That’s — that’s also very fine.”
Visible relief snakes its way onto Kurapika’s face, though he stamps it down immediately. “It’s more convenient this way,” he supplies unnecessarily, coughing. “You’re making it harder to break in now.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Leorio says. “Would you rather me leave the door unlocked?”
“Oh, shut up.”
They’re both smiling, Leorio broadly and like an idiot and Kurapika less demonstratively, as Kurapika curls his fingers around the spare key again.