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Flames.
Screams.
Blood. Fountains of blood pouring from his kin's eye sockets.
He's too young. He's far too young to be seeing this.
Yet there's nobody left to cover his eyes. Everyone else is fighting the Spiders. Even his parents can't muster up any attention for him.
Until his mother yells at him to run. Her now red eyes burn with a rage and fear that doesn't belong on her gentle face. He doesn't want to leave her, but she screams. Another Kurta distracts the Spider targeting his mother, and she runs to him.
“Kurapika…” she mumbles, tugging him in for a final hug. He squeezes her as tight as his small arms can muster. “Run away. Leave us all behind.”
“I can't!” he cries, his tears soaking into her clothes. “Mom, please…!”
“They'll kill you too!” She starts crying, too. “They'll take your eyes if you don't run!”
Maybe it would be best if they stole his eyes. He wouldn't have to see any of this.
“I don't want to leave you!”
“You have to, Kurapika, I'm so sorry…” She sobs as she holds him close to her chest. Her heartbeat thumps with an erratic rhythm.
There's a shriek of pain from his left. It's too close. His heart seizes with fear.
She shoves him away. “Go! Go!"
He nods. “I love you, Mom…!”
“I love you too—” Blood splatters against her face as she flinches. She whips around. “You bastards!”
He doesn't hesitate any longer. He sprints into the forest.
“Mom… Mom…!” Tears fall from his eyes faster than he can wipe them away.
“Mom…”
Kurapika wakes in a cold sweat, heart racing. His face is wet and his throat is hoarse. He attempts throwing the covers off of himself, desperately wanting to get away.
A strange weight prevents it. He struggles against that weight, whining involuntarily.
“Kurapika,” a familiar voice says. “Kurapika, it's me.”
His fight-or-flight brain takes a few moments before it associates the voice with a person. “Leorio?” Right. They're… living together. They're adults now and Kurapika is safe. He's safe.
“Yeah, come here.” Leorio reels him in, the feeling of his warm arms a comforting blanket. Residual tears bubble up and leak from Kurapika's eyes. “That's it, you're okay.” He digs his nails into Leorio's back and drags, scrabbling to keep a good grip on him. They're lucky he keeps his nails blunt. “I'm not going anywhere,” he says with a small laugh.
A pathetic moan leaves his throat. Leorio pats him rhythmically. Kurapika continues to sob involuntarily. No matter how much he tries to even out his breathing, it always hitches and he spirals down again.
But he never feels ashamed. Not with Leorio.
“I hate those dreams,” Kurapika manages, voice strained to hell and back. “I hate it!”
“I'd imagine. But they're just dreams, you'll be okay.”
Kurapika's chest heaves. “That's the thing, I… I don't know if they're just dreams!” He manages to grip onto Leorio harder. “I don't remember that day at all.”
“The day the Troupe—?”
The fan air conditioning whirs in Kurapika's ears.
“Yes. All I remember is flames, blood, screams, and… my mother.” He lifts his head to gulp for air. “But I don't remember the details, and I have to relive it—! Over and over, changing slightly every time, and I don't know which one is the truth!” He tilts his head back down and lets out the air in an all-consuming scream. “It's worse than hell itself…!”
Leorio massages Kurapika's back. First, at the base of his neck, then moving down to his shoulder blades. His muscles are infinitely tense — to the point Leorio's gentle motions hurt.
“Relax, sunshine,” Leorio whispers.
“I can't—” Kurapika gasps violently when Leorio hits a painful spot. “Bastard!”
Leorio laughs. “There's my ‘pika.”
“You're awful.”
Finally, his hands stop on the small of Kurapika's back, rubbing circles into the spot. The tension bleeds out of him as he makes a soft, contented noise. Leorio kisses the side of his head and nuzzles into blonde hair. Kurapika exhales deeply, lowering his arms to hold Leorio gentler.
“That's it… You're safe.”
“You're safe, Kurapika.”
The air is punched from his lungs.
“Kurapika?”
“Kurapika! Run!”
“I don't want to run,” Kurapika whispers, his fingers digging in again. It hurts so much. He can't be abandoned again.
“You don't have to run, sunshine.” Despite the painful grip Kurapika has on him, Leorio pulls him closer ever-so gently. It pulls Kurapika out of his memories. His mother hugged him tightly, harshly, like she was holding on for dear life. Leorio's arms are always gentle. Too gentle for someone like Kurapika.
Even if he remembers where he is, he's still panting in fear. Because if his mother left, if his family got massacred…
What's preventing Leorio from being beholden to that fate? Worse, what's preventing him from leaving voluntarily to keep himself safe?
Because even if Kurapika is back now, he abandoned his friends for years to keep them safe. His mission was filled with rotten work, with danger and blood and rage, and he would never let his friends get tied up in it again. Even if his main objective is complete… the Spiders are still out there. And he's killed quite a few of them. He's sure that the chain-user is still cemented in their minds as an enemy that needs to be eliminated.
And they know that the best way to get to the chain-user is to threaten his friends. If they knew the depth of how he felt for Leorio… Well, he's also sure that Leorio knows what would happen to him.
And Leorio has a purpose in this world. A cause that he's dedicated himself to whole-heartedly, even when he got lonely and overworked and struggled to get a job. Kurapika came running back begging for forgiveness the moment he realized he hated being lonely.
(That epiphany came in front of the altar with his people’s eyes. He hadn't moved in days, kneeling and bowing his head. What was supposed to be a pose of respect and mourning turned into one of punishment. His eyes ached from sobbing and his muscles ached from being kept in the same position for so long and his heart ached from the knowledge that he was now well and truly alone. Purposeless. Without his knowing or consenting, chains had encased his limbs and kept him from moving even if he had tried.
Which he hadn't.
Until the phone in his pocket rang. It played a cartoon jingle that Kurapika was unfamiliar with, but Leorio insisted on it being his ringtone. It was like his soul came back to his body. He suddenly felt the weight of the chains on his limbs and breathed deeply to regain control of them.
It was time for him to answer his phone.)
He had hurt Leorio by protecting him. He doesn't regret keeping him — as well as Gon and Killua (no, especially Gon and Killua) — out of his mission. But he regrets keeping him in the dark and so far away. He feels like an awful person about it most days, but Leorio is far too forgiving. He's an infinitely strong person. (Strong enough to be able to leave.)
He also has a purpose. A reason to stay alive. And staying close to Kurapika is the worst way to stay alive.
But, if his years in isolation have taught him anything, Kurapika is a very selfish person. He knows that keeping Leorio in his life is endangering him, but the idea of him leaving… oh, it makes him want to rip his own heart out.
“‘pika?” Leorio asks, a hand having moved to Kurapika's wrist without him noticing. “Love, your pulse—”
Kurapika lifts his head in an instant. His eyes have turned scarlet, overcome with anxiety and residual adrenaline.
“Oh, sunshine…” Leorio moves to hold his head to his chest again, but Kurapika holds him away. His mind falls to the wayside, body acting on instinct as he summons chains on his fingers. “Kurapika?”
“Don't worry. I don't intend to harm you.”
“Well, I never doubted that,” Leorio says, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. Kurapika nearly bursts into tears.
As his emotions heighten further, it's easy to throw away the impulse control holding him back. He extends his pinkie and allows the chain to pierce Leorio's heart.
The doctor gasps, his hand flying to his chest.
“Please,” Kurapika breathes, the condition forming in his mind before his mouth can catch up, “don't abandon me if you can help it. We can be apart if it's out of our control, but if… if you're able, please stay by my side.” His eyes sting. He closes them as tight as he can, allowing tears to leak out yet again. The chain retreats.
“Kurapika.” Leorio's face seems to flit between several emotions before settling on something serious. “Kurapika, I would never leave you.”
Kurapika lets his eyes flutter open. “What?”
“Of course I'd never abandon you of my own volition.” Leorio grabs Kurapika's left hand and places it over his heart. “Why do you think I kept calling you for so long?”
“I—” Kurapika breaks eye contact. His heart throbs as if it's the one that's been pierced. “I thought you just needed a space to… talk. I didn't know you intended for the messages to reach me.”
Leorio blinks. Then his eyebrows furrow. “Why else would I be calling you?” He runs a thumb over Kurapika's hand. “Jeez, I know you can be dense sometimes, but this is a new level. If I just wanted somewhere to yell my thoughts into the void, I'd go… Well, you know where.”
“I thought I'd become another space for that,” Kurapika mumbles. The chains clink against each other as he forms a fist with his fingers. “I may as well have been dead to you—”
“No!” Leorio yells. His other hand grabs Kurapika's right. “I worried that you'd die some days… but as long as I didn't know for sure, I had faith that you were still alive!”
“That's not what I meant. You—” He sniffs. “You should've hated me after what I did.”
“I was pretty damn pissed, yeah, but I could never hate you, ‘pika.”
“You should!”
Leorio scoffs. “I think you hate yourself enough for both of us. Speaking of which—”
“I'm not going to therapy.” Kurapika chuckles mirthlessly. “You already know that.”
“Then you have to accept that I love you! On your own! Fully and without question!” Leorio pinches his cheeks. Kurapika frowns.
“Ow…” He rubs his face.
“I'd never leave you. Get that through your thick skull, sunshine.” Leorio gestures to his chest. “Makes this kinda pointless, though.”
Kurapika blinks. His eyes have returned to normal, and his mind is clearing up from the anguished fog. It takes him a few moments of picking through the past minute to remember what he did. His face contorts in dread.
“Oh, no…” He spits a string of Kurta curses. “Leorio, why did you let me—?!” He can't even get the words out. He's truly the worst.
“Hey, hey, calm down.” Leorio caresses his cheeks. “I'm not angry. I'm… not even scared, love.”
“How can't you be?! I put a blade in your heart!”
“A conditional blade,” he reminds him with a smile. “A condition that I'd rather die than break in the first place.”
“You might change your mind—”
Leorio physically pinches Kurapika's lips closed. “Shh. Shut up about that. I won't.” Kurapika rips the hand away. He wants to keep yelling and lashing out, but they've done that enough over the past year.
“Even then, you have so much good to do in this world. Don't throw it away for me.”
“I'm not throwing it away, love.” Leorio manages to get his arms around Kurapika and squeezes him. “But if it came between you and my job, I'd choose you. I can find more work. I can't find another ‘pika.” He rubs his cheek on the crown of Kurapika's head. “And even if I could, you'd still be my favorite.”
Tentatively, Kurapika wiggles his arms and gently pushes Leorio away. Not out of a feeling of not deserving the affection, but out of necessity. “Can you at least let me remove it?”
“Course.”
Kurapika focuses on Leorio's heart. The feeling of it beating around his Nen is relaxing. He can't analyze heartbeats quite like Melody, but even he can tell that Leorio's is kind and soothing. He wants to burrow into it and never leave.
Still, he must. Gently, he eases the Nen blade out of Leorio's heart, making sure that it'll cause no physical damage. His conditional chains won't activate unless the condition is violated; at least if they're left alone. Kurapika has never had to remove a blade before. He's unsure of what would happen if he wasn't overly careful.
Thankfully, it goes perfectly fine. Leorio sighs in relief when the blade leaves his chest; no grimaces of pain, no blood, nothing. All of the chains Kurapika summoned fade away.
“I'm sorry, Leorio.” He leans forward and clasps his hands together. “I will never use my chains on you again. I swear on my life.”
“Don't worry about it, sunshine.” Leorio lays his hands over Kurapika's. “Actually, it was… kind of nice to have a reminder of you in my heart. Like a little souvenir of ‘pika.”
Nice? A blade? Just because it was from me?
Kurapika snorts. He covers his mouth and starts laughing unabashedly. Giddy fondness rises in his chest as his shoulders shake. "Souvenir?"
Leorio can't hide how he grins, either. “It can't be that funny—” He cuts himself off with a laugh.
They end up leaning against each other, laughing, foreheads pressed together. Kurapika can't stop himself from leaning forward and turning it into a kiss. They're both grinning like idiots and still laughing a little and can't kiss properly. It's the best kiss they've ever shared.
“I love you,” Kurapika breathes. “I love you so much that I can't comprehend it. I certainly can't comprehend why you love me back. I… I haven't felt love like this in so long. Or ever.” He wraps his arms around Leorio's neck and pulls him closer. “I'm not trying to question your love, I promise.”
“I know, I know.” Leorio gives him another lingering kiss. “I'll spend the rest of my life making sure you know I love you.”
“You're a sappy idiot,” Kurapika says fondly.
“Says the guy who wanted to use Nen chains to keep me by his side—”
“Aah, stop!” Kurapika slaps a hand over Leorio's mouth.
“You know I won't.” Leorio wiggles his eyebrows.
Kurapika sighs. “I know you won't.” He forces Leorio to lean back on the pillows so he can nuzzle into his chest and hear that sweet heartbeat. He exhales deeply, now boneless and content.
“God,” Leorio mumbles, running his fingers through Kurapika's hair. “Why are you so cute when you're tired?”
“Shh. Time to sleep.” Kurapika feels himself starting to drift off, lulled by that rhythmic sound. “Mnmn, I love you.”
“Love you too, ‘pika.”
He loves me.
Leorio loves me and I am safe.
Kurapika smiles like an idiot.
(He hasn't smiled this wide in years.)