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Leorio needed a minute.
Just a minute.
His single year of med school hadn’t prepared him for this. Sure, he’d studied in the library until his brain was about to leak out of his ears, aced organic chemistry, even experimented a bit with how he could theoretically use nen in surgery.
But nothing could have prepared him for working in an actual, endlessly chaotic medical environment.
It was fantastic. It was horrible. You’d think people travelling on a cruise wouldn’t need emergency life-saving surgeries on a daily basis but no, there was always a tumour to be excised or an appendix about to burst.
After all the blood and gore he’d witnessed during the hunter exam, it should have been a breeze to sit through and watch his first surgery.
It wasn’t.
It was bad - worse. He wondered how the resident surgeon was able to keep her hands so still.
And then he’d been thrown into the deep end and found out first hand that a surgeon’s hands can’t shake, you cannot let them shake, because you are the patients’ only chance at life and shaking is not allowed, not now, not ever.
It was only three months in and, in a freak accident (what the hell went on on the other levels of this damn ship?!), so many people had been injured that the panicked and overworked triage nurse had no choice but to give Leorio a surgery patient with hardly any supervision and hope for the best.
He’d saved them.
His hands had stayed still.
But the moment he was no longer needed, and time started flowing at a normal rate again, his only coherent thought was that he needed to sit in a dark room by himself.
It was a big ship, but his legs seemed to know where to take him.
The benefit of working as a hospital med student-slash-runner-slash-novice surgeon for a couple months was that you became familiar with the medical stockrooms.
One stockroom had been completely cleared out in the first two months.
So there it laid - a useless, empty room.
Leorio locked the door behind him and sunk to the ground. He closed his eyes and waited for his heartrate to return to normal, wondering what Kurapika’s friend Melody would say about it now. Would she be able to tell how stressed he was? Maybe he should find her - he’d heard she was somewhere on the ship - and then she could talk Cheadle into giving him a break and maybe a nice fancy deluxe cabin away from the medical deck. With fancy wines and a balcony. Something he could bring beautiful women back to, who would be so impressed with the luxury and his obvious wealth.
Where was Kurapika anyway? Too busy doing reckless things, probably. Rude but undeniably typical of him not to visit. Kurapika knew full well where Leorio was stationed.
Leorio should go find him.
As soon as Cheadle gave him a damn break.
He sighed. He stared at the wall, just breathing, for what must have been at least fifteen minutes undisturbed. The dark room was nice and cool, and the voices outside were muted. It smelt sterile, but not in an obnoxiously chemical-like way. Leorio’s pager stayed silent.
He could almost pretend he was back in his med school library, about to nap on the desk after pulling an all-nighter to study for an exam.
Back when things were easier and his peers were refreshingly normal, actually bordering on dull, and he would frequently ponder whether his hunter exam friends were going so beyond his power level that they’d all leave him behind in the dust…
Ha.
Right. Dark rooms were pretty boring, actually. Why was he in here anyway? He’d just done a successful surgery! He should be yelling that fact in Cheadle’s face so she’d convince the resident surgeon to let Leorio do more surgeries!
He stood up, unlocked the door, and ran right out to do just that.
(Cheadle was unimpressed)
In the end, it was Kurapika who bit the bullet to seek Leorio out. That was how he knew it was bad.
And by the looks of him, Kurapika hadn’t been relaxed enough to take a deep breath in weeks.
Teenagers weren’t supposed to be that stressed.
Leorio told Kurapika as much, and Kurapika just blinked and glared at him like it was his fault.
“So. Medication. For headaches and eye pain. Can you help me or not?” Kurapika asked tiredly.
Leorio nearly gave in and went through the motions of prescribing pain medication and sending his friend on his (evidently not so) merry way.
But…
There was another option.
After all, supply closet time had become a sacred ritual for Leorio. Once or twice a week, or more during the rough days, he’d enter it a defeated and war-weary man and leave it inspired, raring to go.
He’d figured out that all he needed to do to claim the room for himself was use a nen portal to lock it from the inside (how did he ever live without nen?) whenever he left.
It was his. His only.
He didn’t even use it for a hookup that one time he had the opportunity (slow day, bored nurse, you get the picture). That was how sacred the room was to him.
That was, until today.
Kurapika followed him silently, unprotesting.
When Leorio got to the door, he unlocked it using his nen portal, walked inside, and then paused, looking at Kurapika expectedly.
“What?” Kurapika asked, “Is staring at me going to help you find the medication?”
Leorio rolled his eyes and grabbed his arm to pull him in.
“Leorio, what - there’s nothing even in here! I don’t have time for this-”
“Quit complaining.” Leorio said cheerily, closing the door behind them, “And I will give you your pain meds if you sit here in silence for fifteen minutes.”
“What is this?” Kurapika demanded.
“It’s your doctor’s orders, Kurapika. Sit down.”
“This is ridiculous.” Kurapika said, reaching for the door.
Leorio blocked him. That he was even able to block him spoke a lot for Kurapika’s current state.
“How dare you call my expertise and sanctuary ridiculous.” Leorio chided him.
Kurapika pressed his palms into his eyes.
“Expertise? Sanctuary? A dark empty room? Some of us have jobs to do, you idiot. Is this what you do all day?”
“No.” Leorio said, watching his friend, “This is where I go when I’ve just done three surgeries in a row with no break. Or when I fuck up.”
Leorio paused.
“Or when I don’t fuck up. But the patient still dies.”
Kurapika didn’t have anything to say to that, but Leorio supposed that was good. Meant he was actually stopping to think.
In the silence, he nearly asked Kurapika how much sleep he was getting, but stopped himself. It was a redundant question.
Finally, Kurapika sighed and removed his hands from him face.
He still looked about as cranky before, but the edge had been taken off. The room was already working its magic
“Ok.” Kurapika spat. “We do this your way. I stay in this room for ten minutes-”
“I said fifteen-”
“Ten minutes. I sit in this room. You do not ask me any questions. And then you give me the damn medication.”
“Tough bargain. Deal.” Leorio conceded, grinning.
Kurapika did not grin back. Not that Leorio expected him to. Instead, he immediately sat down on the floor and stared at the wall.
Leorio joined him.
It was… nostalgic.
For some reason Leorio was reminded of the 54 hours they’d spent locked in a room together (with Gon and Killua) during the hunter exam. They’d left that room with a comradery that could weather long periods of silence. Which Leorio had always thought of as a blessing. Especially with how rude Kurapika could be when he was stressed.
Leorio listened to Kurapika’s breathing evening out.
When the ten minutes were up, Leorio glanced at him.
“Still need the pain meds?”
“What did you do to this room?” Kurapika asked, ignoring the question. “Is it nen?”
Leorio laughed.
“It’s called resting, idiot. Remember that? Resting?”
“Asshole.” Kurapika muttered without venom as he stood up and brushed off his suit.
“The low light also helps. You sure you don’t want anything?”
Kurapika shook his head.
“I want to get back to my job.”
He opened the door, and sounds from the boat flooded back into their awareness. Leorio was pretty sure he heard at least one alarm coming from the medical deck, which meant he’d have to run back.
They both left, Leorio quickly locked the door, and he was so distracted by that distant alarm that he went to leave without saying goodbye.
That was, until Kurapika said, “I’ll be back.”
Leorio turned around mid-stride to stare at him.
Still cranky. Still a mess. Still exhausted. But… that earnest quality about him was back.
Leorio had missed it.
“You know where to find me.” He responded with a grin and a salute.
And then he turned and sprinted towards the medical bay, already running through the possible alarm protocols in his head.