Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1217254.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Hunter_X_Hunter
  Relationship:
      Kurapika/Leorio
  Character:
      Kurapika, Leorio_Paladiknight
  Additional Tags:
      Fluff_and_Angst, Comfort/Angst, Angst_with_a_Happy_Ending, Inline_with
      canon
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-02-22 Chapters: 2/2 Words: 4485
****** Fallout ******
by tastewithouttalent
Summary
     "Leorio is fully halfway down the block in the other direction before
     his brain clicks in recognition and sparks into frantic overdrive."
     The consequences of Leorio passing Kurapika on the street after manga
     chapter 339.
***** Meeting *****
Leorio has developed a habit.
He knows that’s all it is, a bad habit born of desperation and anxious,
constant, nagging worry he can’t ever entirely escape, and he knows he
should stop, because every time he turns hard towards a fall of blond hair it’s
only ever followed by disappointment. It’s gotten worse, not better, as the
months have gone on, until now he’ll turn for long pale strands and black
clothes as quick as for white-and-blue fabric and curling gold, until he half-
expects to see Kurapika around every street corner.
Continual disappointment means that this time, when his eyes catch on dark
clothes and yellow hair, he glances, and turns away, and is fully halfway down
the block in the other direction before his brain clicks in recognition and
sparks into frantic overdrive. He spins back around, eyes frantically scanning
the crowd because it couldn’t be, there is no way it --
There. Black fabric, a suit rather than the clinging jacket Leorio last saw,
but the hair is right, just brushing the shoulders and over a foot lower than
the top of Leorio head, and those shoulders and that walk and the shape of the
hands, he knows those, he doesn’t need to see Kurapika’s face to recognize him.
His mouth is open around a call of delighted recognition before he chokes it
back. He hasn’t been answering your calls, his mind points out. He doesn’t want
to see you, he’ll run if he knows you’re here.
Killua must be rubbing off on him. Leorio growls, drags a hand desperately
through his hair and ignores the people glancing at the stranger standing
transfixed on a busy sidewalk and staring after a moving figure. He thinks it’s
the thought of Killua that does it, after all, the desperation to show that
even if the younger boy would let Kurapika walk away Leorio Paladiknight damn
well won’t.
He moves fast enough that he gains on the blond, even though the other is
moving smoothly through the crowd and Leorio is forcing his way straight down
the middle without regard for oncomers. It takes him another couple of blocks
to get close enough, and then he’s near enough to touch and suddenly has
absolutely no idea what to do.
“Kurapika,” he says. The name catches in his throat so he thinks it’ll be lost
entirely, but the person in front of him is turning sharp and startled, and
that should be confirmation in itself. Leorio is still startled when the
movement completes and there, yes, he knows that face and he knows those eyes,
wide and startled and horrified, and it’s only because he’s expecting it that
he gets his hand around Kurapika’s arm as the blond twists to bolt.
They are both frozen for a moment in tableau, Kurapika staring with his mouth
open at Leorio and Leorio staring back, feeling as shocked by actually seeing
Kurapika as the blond looks to be by him. Then Kurapika swallows visibly, and
when he speaks Leorio is expecting an apology.
“What are you doing here?” he asks instead, and Leorio’s mouth drops open.
“What do you mean?” he says, more shocked than angry. His voice is too loud;
Kurapika hisses and glances around, and when he moves towards a side street
Leorio follows purely because he’s not going to relinquish his hold on the
other man’s arm. “What am I doing? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you
for months, Kurapika, why didn’t you return my calls?” They stop at the start
of a currently-deserted street and Kurapika turns back around to face Leorio.
The shock on the blond’s face is hardening into anger and Leorio doesn’t
know why it should, but he’s starting to get angry too and he knows damn well
why that is.
“I thought you were dead,” he says, and the sentence slides wildly between
tearful and furious on his tongue. “What the hell have you been doing that you
couldn’t stop to talk to me for half a minute?” Kurapika twists his arm to jerk
free and Leorio lets him, half-ready for the blond to run and not sure he’d
follow now. The blond doesn’t move, though, just lets his arms hang limp at his
sides and stares accusingly up at Leorio while the other man continues. “You’ve
been entirely out of contact, didn’t you listen to any of my messages? We’ve
been worried about you, I’ve been worried about you, you said you’d call why
didn’t you --”
“I’ve been busy,” Kurapika says over him, too fast, faster than Leorio has ever
heard him talk so the panic is audible in his tone. He’s still looking at
Leorio, though, faux-black eyes fixed on the other’s natural ones, and his eyes
are cold and focused but at least Leorio can see him.
He’s missed Kurapika, is the problem. Leorio’s angry now, has been angry for
months at a low-level simmer, but when he thought about a reunion he always
thought about backing Kurapika up against a wall, yelling until he ran out of
words and had to make do with sticking his tongue down the other’s throat, and
Kurapika murmuring that he’s sorry, that he had his reasons, that he missed
Leorio as much as Leorio’s been missing him. But there’s none of the heat that
has underlined Leorio’s memories of the other, none of the flicker-flash of
want in his veins, just cold rejection in Kurapika’s eyes, and Leorio’s
remembering that now, too. He saw this the night Kurapika went after the
Troupe, the structure of a wall that the blond was building around himself.
The difference is that, this time, it’s not coming down, and Leorio doesn’t
know what to do. He wants to keep pushing, force it away so he can have
Kurapika back instead of this stranger staring at him like they’ve never met,
but the expression under the fall of blond hair is getting harder as he keeps
talking, and his intuition says this isn’t how to go about mending things.
Maybe there is no way to go about it, his voice says again. Things change.
Gon hasn’t changed, he shoots back across the arena of his own thoughts. Gon
wouldn’t give up.
You think Gon hasn’t changed? his voice says, soft and sad, and he blinks and
flinches and leans back, away from the man in front of him.
“Yeah.” He says. “You’ve been busy.”
Kurapika is staring at him, but there’s no change in his eyes, just a
relaxation of the resistance as Leorio stops putting up a fight. They stand
silent for a moment, just watching each other. Then Kurapika shakes his sleeve
smooth of the wrinkles Leorio’s fingers put in it, shakes Leorio back out of
his life, and starts to turn away even before he speaks.
“I am busy,” he says. This time Leorio doesn’t reach out to stop him. He
doesn’t turn to watch Kurapika walking away, either, and when his mind whimpers
for what could be the last look at the other he’ll get he shuts his eyes and
puts a hand over his eyes until it’s been long enough, until the possibility is
gone and the temptation with it.
***** Forgiveness *****
Kurapika very nearly doesn’t knock on the door. He has spent his walk across
the city thinking about turning around, telling himself that he’s going to turn
around, that he’s better without distractions and that Leorio is better without
him and that he won’t go.
He goes, though, all the way across the intervening blocks, relinquishing every
possibility of turning around until he’s in front of the hotel door with his
hands hanging at his sides and his very last chance to leave in front of him.
The walls of the room are thick enough that he can’t hear anything from inside,
but he keeps imagining he can hear the too-heavy footfalls of Leorio’s
unnatural height, keeps thinking he’s catching a phrase in the other’s familiar
voice.
Do it. His hands are shaking, more full of adrenaline than when he is fighting
for his life, and his heart is racing, and he knocks on the door without
thinking. It’s been months since he did anything without thinking.
There’s what feels like a small infinity between the sound of his fist against
the wood and the actual door opening, long enough for his stomach to swoop down
and up and down again, and then the door parts from the frame and Leorio is
there with his coat and tie and shirt off and a toothbrush in his mouth and a
half-smile of apology that melts away as he takes in Kurapika.
They are both very still for a moment. Then Kurapika says, “I’m sorry,” just as
Leorio says, “Kurapika” in a tone like he’s been punched in the stomach, and
somehow the way it goes garbled around the obstruction in his mouth makes it
more heartwrenching and not less. Kurapika takes a breath with a throat
suddenly sodden with tears, and his eyes are burning, and Leorio steps out of
the way and holds the door open without any sign of hesitation.
That is what does it. That after months of utter silence and Kurapika’s
deliberate cruelty not five hours before, that Leorio just moves away to let
him in without anything other than a half-heard apology -- Kurapika’s next
breath sounds like a sob, and he steps in fast so he can cry inside Leorio’s
room instead of in the hallway outside it.
Leorio shuts the door behind him and moves into the bathroom to spit and rinse
his mouth, and Kurapika feels horribly self-conscious, aware of the mess of
clothes and half-packed belongings strewn all across the bed and the chair and
the table evidence of his intrusion into a space Leorio clearly didn’t expect
anyone else to see. He’s still wearing his suit, which seemed like a good idea
when he left, but now that Leorio’s shirtless in the other room he feels
overdressed, excessively formal for what is ultimately an exercise in
grovelling and pleading for forgiveness.
Leorio comes back out, wiping his damp mouth with the back of his hand. He’s
barefoot too, Kurapika notices half-desperately, and he’s wearing loose pajama
pants instead of his usual slacks, and Kurapika looks up at his face and Leorio
stops dead a few feet away.
“Kurapika, are you --” he starts, staring at the blond’s eyes. Kurapika takes
another choking breath, and when he blinks he can feel his emotion-scarlet eyes
overflow with a wash of tears across his face. Leorio makes a whimper of panic
in the back of his throat and his arms come around Kurapika’s shoulders as
Kurapika lifts his hand to drag a sleeve roughly across his face. The movement
pins Kurapika’s arm between them so his wrist is jammed into his nose and his
elbow is digging into Leorio’s ribs, but Kurapika’s crying properly now and
can’t straighten himself back into composure.
“Leorio,” he says. It’s been weeks since he let himself think the other’s name,
months since he’s said it aloud. He pushes his arm free so he can loop his
elbow around Leorio’s neck and press his forehead into the other’s chest.
“Leorio, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I --”
“You should be,” Leorio says sharply, but his touch is out of all context to
his words. His fingers are in Kurapika’s hair, pressing the other in closer to
his bare skin, and his other arm is slanting across Kurapika’s back to hold the
blond steady and upright. “You should be extremely sorry, what were
you thinking,” but he’s stroking against Kurapika’s hair and Kurapika’s tears
are pouring against gravity up his throat until he can’t speak coherently at
all.
“Come on,” Leorio says after a moment, and Kurapika comes, follows the other
man into the room itself while Leorio shoves everything atop the mattress onto
the floor before turning back to the blond. He reaches out to push Kurapika’s
jacket off his shoulders and onto the floor with as little consideration for
that as for his own belongings, and when he sits on the edge of the bed
Kurapika follows without waiting for an invitation. Leorio doesn’t protest when
Kurapika drops beside him, and when Kurapika turns sideways to angle his legs
over Leorio’s lap Leorio just wraps his arm around the blond’s waist and pulls
him up until Kurapika is properly against him and can turn to bury his face in
Leorio’s shoulder and cry like the world is collapsing around him.
This was not part of his plan. He had planned to say he was sorry, to shower
Leorio with apologies until the other man had to let him in, maybe work his way
around to a half-hearted explanation. It’s been too long since he spent any
time with the other, though, and he was expecting Leorio to behave the way
Kurapika would in his position, and the total lack of expected resistance left
him entirely defenseless and shattered before he even began.
“I’m furious with you,” Leorio says to his shoulder, and against all logic that
makes Kurapika laugh. Leorio doesn’t, although he doesn’t pull away either.
“Did you listen to any of my messages?”
Kurapika shakes his head without trying to speak, and Leorio keeps talking.
“Gon almost died.” For a moment Kurapika thinks Leorio is exaggerating, but
when the other man keeps talking he has a level set to his tone that strips all
of his usual excess from the meaning. “It was weeks, when we thought we would
die on any day, at any hour.” Kurapika’s ragged sobs taper into choking
inhales, inversely linked to the horror rising in him. “Killua was a mess.”
Leorio takes a breath and Kurapika can feel it catch in his chest with the
memory of terror. “He was barely coherent even before he disappeared to get
help.”
“Did he?” Kurapika whispers against Leorio’s skin. His limbs have gone stiff
with frozen horror.
Leorio heaves a sigh. “He did. Saved Gon and started talking again, but he --”
Leorio shakes his head. Kurapika can feel the movement against his hair.
“Neither of them look the same, anymore. Things have been happening to them.
Bad things, Kurapika. I told you all this, we needed you, they needed you.”
Kurapika wants to cut him off, declare that he knows what he did, that he
doesn’t need Leorio to tell him, that it hurts to hear it. He doesn’t speak or
move, barely breathes, and lets Leorio keeps talking, keeps his attention
focused on the words so each one falls with all the weight it ought. It’s the
best he can do, now.
“You weren’t there, Kurapika, and I thought you were dead on top of everything
else, and when Gon woke up he asked where you were, did you know that? He
expected you would be there, and if you had answered my damn calls
you could have been. What the hell have you been doing that was more important
than Gon’s life?”
Kurapika shakes his head. “It wasn’t.” He chokes and has to take a breath
before he can go on. “Wasn’t more important. I -- that’s why I’m here. It was a
mistake.”
That’s the understatement of his life, and Leorio’s sharp laugh says that he
knows it too. “A mistake?”
“I don’t know what to say,” Kurapika says. He’s flushing hot with shame and
misery and self-loathing all together, his skin is burning and his blood is
cold and even the contact of Leorio’s skin against his face and Leorio’s
fingers in his hair can’t spark up a flicker of heat into his hypothermic
veins. “I’m sorry but that’s not enough. I can’t -- I can’t fix this.”
“No,” Leorio says, and Kurapika shuts his eyes.
Leorio leans back, and his hands shift from Kurapika’s back and hair to grip
his shoulders and hold him away, and Kurapika blinks and looks up to see the
hatred in Leorio’s dark gaze. He deserves it, after all.
Leorio’s mouth is still set into a frown of anger, but his eyes aren’t cold
like Kurapika is expecting, like Kurapika half-wants them to be out of some
masochistic impulse. They’re hot, burning on the blond’s face, and when Leorio
speaks his voice is shaking with the same burn.
“I’m furious with you, Kurapika,” he says, and Kurapika nods sharp with
agreement, of course he’s angry, he has every right to be angry. “I’m going to
kiss you.”
Kurapika nods again without thinking, anything Leorio wants, of course, yes,
whatever he can do, and he’s only just started to freeze up as the shock of
meaning registers when Leorio’s mouth hits his. The shock doesn’t withstand the
press of lips, and the other man’s mouth pours heat into Kurapika’s blood to
melt away the horrified ice that had formed during the other’s speech.
Leorio pulls back for a breath and Kurapika realizes his mouth is open, his
hands are up around Leorio’s neck. “Totally furious, don’t forget,” he gasps,
and Kurapika nods in understanding and Leorio comes back in to slide his tongue
past Kurapika’s lips. He’s warm and solid and perfect, Kurapika’s blood is
flaring hotter than it has all these months alone, and when Kurapika whines
against Leorio’s mouth hands come up into his hair to hold him still and he
feels like he can breathe again, like there has been a pressure crushing him
slowly into stasis and his heart is only now beating properly again.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Leorio says a minute later, as he’s kissing the
side of Kurapika’s neck and tugging desperately at his tie. Kurapika is trying
to kick his shoes off -- one is off but the other is tied tighter, he has to
fold his leg up to reach the ties so he can pull the knot free -- but he nods
so the other man can feel the movement. When Leorio pushes him back Kurapika
goes fast enough that he hits his head on the foot of the bed, come back up
hissing in pain, and Leorio slides backwards and drags Kurapika out of range of
the frame before leaning in over him to keep kissing a path down the front of
his shirt as he works the buttons open.
“Call me every day,” Leorio orders, and Kurapika laughs but it sounds like a
sob, and he’s crying again, the sobs uncontrollable so he has to cover his
mouth with a hand just to muffle the sound. “Promise me, Kurapika.”
“I promise,” Kurapika says, and then Leorio’s got his shirt open and Kurapika’s
sitting up to touch again, because even if he’s sobbing his hands are better at
touching Leorio’s skin than covering his own mouth, and Leorio kisses him
anyway and the hiccuping sounds are lost under the other man’s tongue. His skin
is superheated, and Kurapika can feel every shift of muscle as Leorio tries to
keep his somewhat precarious balance, and then Leorio loses focus again and
pulls away to tug off one of Kurapika’s socks.
That makes the blond laugh, even around his choking tears of relief. “Leorio,
do you even have a plan here?”
“Sure I have a plan,” Leorio snaps, abandoning the sock idea in favor of
shoving Kurapika’s shirt back off his shoulders to puddle on the mattress
behind him. “You’re wearing too many clothes and I am getting them off you.”
“But you’re --” Kurapika starts, twisting so he can pull off the remaining
footwear while Leorio’s fingers trace out the pattern of his ribcage and he
tries to breathe. “You’re angry.”
“I am.” Leorio kisses him again. “And I missed you. Both together.” Another
kiss, and this time he doesn’t pull back far enough. “I missed you a lot,
Kurapika.”
Kurapika laughs damply. “I missed you too. I --” he chokes and has to swallow
hard. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Leorio says, and comes back forward so Kurapika is pinned between the
other man’s shoulders and the bed.
It’s easy to forget, with Leorio. That’s why Kurapika pushed him away in the
first place, because he had to focus and it was impossible to do that when he
could barely leave for the unconscious pull Leorio exerted on him. He’s still
not sure it’s the right decision, any more than he’s sure leaving Leorio in the
first place was the right decision. Maybe they should have stayed in Yorknew
City together. Maybe they should have stayed together after the Exam, for that
matter, left Gon and Killua and shared some tiny apartment and
learned Nen together and tangled around each other’s limbs at night in a too-
small bed. Kurapika doesn’t know, anymore, and that scares him more than
anything else. But at least with Leorio he has something solid to lean against,
something other than the temporary intensity of his revenge. Leorio distracts
him from his goal, that is true, that is still true, but without Leorio there’s
not much after that goal either.
Leorio’s tongue drags over his chest, trailing heat and damp in its wake, and
Kurapika groans and arches up against the other man’s weight. Leorio grunts and
rocks into Kurapika’s leg, and Kurapika becomes very aware of how thin Leorio’s
pajama pants are and how desperately he wants them off all at once.
“Leorio,” he says without lifting his head from the mattress as he slides his
hand down the curve of Leorio’s bare shoulder to his back. “Leorio, let me --”
He doesn’t finish the sentence before Leorio is slithering back up over him and
catching the words in his mouth again. Fingers slide around behind Kurapika’s
back and shoulder, and when Leorio rolls over onto his back he takes Kurapika
with them and reverses their positions. Kurapika sighs and Leorio groans, and
the blond turns his hand around to lie palm-down against Leorio’s stomach so he
can slide his fingers down past the waist of the other’s pants. Leorio chokes
and rocks up into the contact, and Kurapika can’t tell quite where he’s
touching, but the other man is breathing harder with every blind movement of
his fingers and that’s good enough for the moment. After a minute Kurapika is
able to pull back from Leorio’s mouth and sit up on his heels so he can
actually pull Leorio’s pants down far enough that they’re free of the other’s
cock, and when he gets his fingers properly around the other’s length Leorio
groans and drops back to the mattress like all his desperation has melted into
languid enjoyment.
Kurapika has lost the trick of getting Leorio off in the last few months of
pointedly not thinking about the other man, which means he has to relearn it
fresh, now. He’s breathing as hard from the excitement of that as from his own
thudding desire, from watching the gradations of expression flicker over
Leorio’s face from desperate to satisfied to pained and adjusting his movement
-- faster, more, slower -- as quick as he can take in the expressions. By the
time he finds the right pace Leorio is panting again, and rocking up into
Kurapika’s touch, and Kurapika is halfway through another apology when Leorio
jerks his head in a negative.
“Don’t apologize -- for this, you’re fine, it -- it’s perfect,” he manages,
reaching out to touch Kurapika’s wrist where it’s braced on the mattress.
Kurapika starts to lift his hand, thinking Leorio wants him to move or shift
or do something with it, and Leorio fits his fingers into the blond’s and holds
tight, like he’s reassuring himself Kurapika’s still there. Kurapika takes a
breath and feels tears start in his eyes again, and Leorio takes a breath and
rocks up and comes under the pull of his hand. Leorio groans in wordless
pleasure, exhaustion and satisfaction purring together in the back of his
throat, and Kurapika smiles even as his throat tries to close up with tears
again.
“Perfect,” Leorio sighs, and then he opens his eyes and focuses on Kurapika’s
face. “Stop, stop, why are you crying?” He sits up and grabs at Kurapika’s
sticky hand so he’s holding the blond steady, leans in to press their foreheads
together.
Kurapika shakes his head and blinking hard. “I’m okay, I just missed you and
I’ve been so awful, why do you want me back at all?”
“‘Cause I missed you too, weren’t you listening?” Leorio says, laughter just
under his words. “Don’t cry now, it’s kind of a mood killer.”
Kurapika does laugh at that. “So I should wait, then?”
Leorio grins and comes in close to kiss at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah.” He
lets Kurapika’s arm go and reaches to tug at the button on the front of the
blond’s slacks. “Just wait, okay?”
Kurapika is not sure he can shut off his overflow of emotions as easily as all
that, but then Leorio gets his pants open and Leorio’s fingers are dragging
down his stomach, and his brain decides that he can set the tears aside for
this. The other man is still breathing hard, Kurapika can feel his breath
coming fast when Leorio presses his mouth against the blond’s neck, and when
Leorio gets his hand around Kurapika’s length Kurapika whimpers a moan and has
to cling to the other’s neck to keep himself upright. Leorio’s rhythm is
different than the one Kurapika sets himself, but the difference goes through
Kurapika’s blood like fire. There’s not even a breath when he forgets that it’s
Leorio touching him, finally finally Leorio’s hands back on him and Leorio
breathing against his neck and Leorio’s skin pressed up against his shoulder.
When he rocks up into Leorio’s touch the other man groans and shudders like
he’s the one being touched, and when Leorio says “Kurapika,” against his neck
Kurapika tries to stammer out his name in return, but his orgasm catches him
halfway through so it turns into a shivering moan as his hands go desperate-
tight against Leorio’s shoulders.
Kurapika is still shaking when Leorio tips them both sideways onto the bed and
starts pulling at his pants.
“C’mon,” he mumbles into Kurapika’s hair. “Get these off and you can sleep or
cry or apologize or whatever you want to do, okay?” Kurapika laughs at that,
amused and damp at once, and wiggles so Leorio can pull his clothes free.
Leorio pauses to hitch his pants back up over his hips, and when he comes back
in he pulls Kurapika in against him.
It’d be more comfortable to turn around so they fit together back-to-front, but
Kurapika doesn’t want to move away, so he tucks his forehead against Leorio’s
chest and wraps his arms around Leorio’s waist. When he shuts his eyes he can
feel Leorio’s breathing over the top of his hair, and he takes a careful breath
and lets himself -- tentatively -- think about a future.
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