Chapter Text
It wasn’t pure coincidence that put Hisoka and Kurapika at the same hotel in the far reaches of the Salpa Mountains. They’d both been given the same lead.
But Chrollo wasn’t there.
They discovered the truth at the very same moment in the small cozy lobby as the staff dutifully began to close thick wooden shutters over the windows that looked out at the mountain range. Distantly they could both see the dark swirling clouds that approached, spilling thick snow over the roads. In minutes the weather went from brisk and snowy to a whited-out blizzard.
They were trapped.
Kurapika was disguised--something he did commonly these days--but he couldn’t hide his normal voice as he hissed, “Fuck.”
Hisoka, only a few feet away, laughed near-silently.
Kurapika shot him a glare.
“Hello,” said Hisoka in reply. “I’d ask what you’re doing here, but I suspect I know.”
Kurapika’s fury ebbed to simple annoyance. “We were lied to.”
“Tricked into a remote part of the world for at least a week. I wonder why. Perhaps our common enemy needed us shelved while he worked on something?”
Probably. Or perhaps it was some kind of poetic justice against both Hisoka and Kurapika. They’d allied before to attack Chrollo, despite Kurapika’s hesitation to work with others in his quest for justice. Whoever arranged this trap must’ve thought there was some delicious irony in making Kurapika face the mistakes he made in recent history.
Kurapika grabbed the hat off his head, twisting the cap’s soft fur between his fingers. “I should have turned around the moment the forecast called for snow.”
“Well, it’s a common skier’s paradise out here,” said Hisoka. “Snow is normal. We couldn’t’ve known.”
“It was an omen and I ignored it.”
“Yes, you shouldn’t’ve done that.”
Kurapika turned his fake brown-eyed stare to Hisoka and took him in for the first time. He was wearing long sleeves--the first time Kurapika had ever seen that. He had a fitted black shirt beneath a dark blue velvet vest embroidered with a white spade over the heart. His shoes were dramatically pointed and glossy black--like men’s dress shoes but weird.
Hisoka was very weird.
Kurapika pulled the red wig off himself with a sigh. He didn’t have much room to judge. He was dressed like an anonymous redheaded elite, in tight black skiing gear far too gaudy for his taste and a human-hair wig that cost more than his usual rent payment.
“Dinner?” Hisoka asked. He gestured to the large double-doors across the lobby which lead to the rustic--but charming--restaurant. It smelled like spiced meat and freshly baked bread and if Kurapika strained, he could distantly hear the employees in the back working away, preparing the evening feast and breakfast for the next morning. Like Kurapika, these poor souls were trapped in the lodge, too. Until the snow let up, they were all in this together.
Some more together than most, perhaps. Hisoka tilted his head and smiled in a way that wasn’t unsettling, for once. Just--normal. Friendly.
That was unsettling in its oddity.
Kurapika didn’t care to give him a reply and marched away in silence, returning to his small woodclad room--alone. He may have been stuck in the mountains for a week, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to train. He didn’t have time for casual dinners--and certainly not with Hisoka .
They certainly had a common enemy in Chrollo Lucilfer, but that was where the similarities ended.
At least--that’s what Kurapika thought, at first.
Every time he inched away from Hisoka’s warm embrace, he’d feel the icy cold blizzard from just outside. Kurapika kept retreating back, pressing closer to Hisoka’s broad, sweaty chest, suffused in the sugar-musk-blood scent of him.
“Are you okay?” asked Hisoka, his voice casual, gentle.
Kurapika looked down Hisoka’s naked chest, over his muscular belly, down to where his cock was pressed inside Kurapika’s ass. His arms were tented over Kurapika’s nude form like a great warm blanket. “I said I’m fine,” Kurapika said, involuntarily tightening against Hisoka’s cock. That felt so good that Kurapika’s eyelids fluttered and he had to swallow, audibly, to keep from doing it again. And again.
“You’ve done this before,” Hisoka said. It wasn’t a question.
“Of course I have,” said Kurapika, his voice catching on the last word.
“I would have liked to see it. The first time you came with a cock in you.”
Kurapika’s breathing came heavily. “I can show you how it looked right now,” he hissed. “If you’d get on with it.”
“It?” Hisoka’s voice was teasing, now.
“Fuck me,” said Kurapika.
Hisoka’s hips snapped forward, thighs slapping against Kurapika’s ass. “Like this, then. It was like this.”
“Yes,” Kurapika bit out. He gasped, pleasure racketing down his body as Hisoka’s enormous, hard cock slammed against his prostate. Kurapika’s muscles tightened all at once with the shock of it, eyes rolling back. Hisoka caught on--of course he did--and so he did it again.
And again.
And again.
Until the wet slapping sounds of their fucking filled the tiny room, along with Kurapika’s gasps and Hisoka’s steady, humming breaths. Eventually, Kurapika choked out, “More. I want to come.”
Hisoka rolled him over so that he was flat on his belly. Hisoka’s legs bracketed Kurapika’s--enormous, muscular thighs pressing heat against him. Their size difference was even more noticeable like this, like Hisoka was twice his height somehow, and twice as broad. Hisoka lifted Kurapika’s hips the barest amount with his enormous, manicured hands, revealing Kurapika’s slick hole--and slammed his cock back inside.
Kurapika’s gasps turned into cries of pleasure then. Again and again, Hisoka pounded into him, until there was no thought left between them. There was nothing but the overwhelming approach of orgasm and raw animal fucking.
Hisoka’s hands found Kurapika’s wrists, pinning him to the bed as his hips snapped back and forth; rapid, brutal. “Next time,” Hisoka’s voice was rough, throat raw with his own moaning. “Next time I want to come in your mouth.”
Kurapika was so close--he could feel it, building in the tips of his fingers. The point where Hisoka’s cockhead hit that bundle of nerves again, and again, and again--it was too much. “-isoka. I’m--”
He gasped awake, in the instant before orgasm.
Fuck.
His erection tented the blanket he was under. And all at once he realized the warm blanket of Hisoka’s embrace was an actual blanket. And the snapping sounds of their fucking was, in fact, the sounds of trees cracking beneath the weight of the ice outside. Snap, snap, snap.
Kurapika was out of breath. His ass--obviously untouched--tightened around nothing, as if he really had been fucked.
But no. He hadn’t had sex, not since--
Kurapika checked his phone, hands shaking. “Stop it, for fuck’s sake,” he whispered to himself. 3:44am. No missed calls. But he did have a text.
Leorio: Please just tell me you’re safe. Please?
Kurapika fell back into his bed, teeth grinding. Why had he dreamed something so twisted? Hisoka wasn’t even that tall. Was he?
Was he?
He’d been so broad in Kurapika’s mind. Wider than--
His erection pulsed.
“Who cares,” Kurapika hissed. It was a dream. It wasn’t real. And ignoring that it happened was warranted. Kurapika had no interest in Hisoka, not like that.
Even if his subconscious apparently filed away the shape--the width, the strength--of Hisoka’s thighs. They weren’t nearly twice the size of his own. That was absurd. He wasn’t usually into muscular men. His tastes were a little more--slim--
His phone lit up. Kurapika looked down to see another message from Leorio.
Leorio: If you don’t fucking respond, I swear to god I will find you and make you regret it.
Kurapika tapped the name and the phone dialed automatically. Leorio picked up immediately. “Finally. Where are you?”
“I’m at a ski lodge in the Salpas. And I don’t need you checking up on me every two minutes. And it’s almost four in the morning.”
“So what? It’s ten at night here and I haven’t heard from you in a month. I haven’t seen you in four months.”
“I’m a little busy, Leorio.”
“Are you? Or are you just avoiding me and pretending that we didn’t--” Leorio stumbled over himself and then whispered, “Have sex.”
Kurapika’s entrance tightened again, his simmering arousal still warming his veins; his overheated, horny memory combed over what had happened all those months ago.
“Ah, fuck,” Leorio said, sounding awed, staring down at the space where their bodies met, where his long, hard cock slid into Kurapika’s wet, waiting hole. “Fuck. You’re so tight. Is it always--” He grunted involuntarily, his voice clipped, strained. “Like this?”
Kurapika didn’t trust himself to speak. He just nodded, eyes welled with tears, the wires in his mind crossed between pain and pleasure.
“But I fingered you first.” His hands spasmed where they held onto Kurapika’s waist. “I stretched you. Does it hurt? I--” He seemed like he may pull away, but Kurapika reached for him, grabbing the sweaty lapel of his shirt, forcing him to stay. “You’re crying.”
Kurapika opened his mouth, trying to find the words. Finally, he exhaled, and said, “It feels so good. Keep going. I’ll come if you--yes. Yes--”
“Fuck,” Leorio said, sliding his enormous cock deeper, farther. “I can barely fit.”
Kurapika sobbed, a pulse of precum dribbling from his slit.
“You’re so perfect. Fuck.”
Kurapika’s breathing picked up and he found himself reaching for his cock, unable to keep himself from his drowning need. “I have to go,” he said.
“Please. We should talk about it. I’ve been trying to tell you that I--”
Kurapika hung up the phone, rolled over, and fisted his erection until he came only a minute later, muffling his cries into the soft surface of his pillow. Kurapika told himself he was thinking of Hisoka this time, as he touched himself.
His subconsciousness was a menace most times. Useful this once.
He woke up exhausted at nearly ten in the morning, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary, even if last night had been some kind of bizarre sex-fueled fever dream. He showered, brushed his teeth, and put on one of his few remaining clean tunics. He was going to run out of clothes soon.
He was going to run out of money soon.
He distracted himself by doing the math in his head, if he was to be stuck here for another five days. He couldn’t actually afford to pay for the room he booked beyond tonight. It was the smallest--least luxurious--room they had in the whole place. And still, Kurapika couldn’t afford it.
He could barely afford anything these days.
Unbidden, the thought came to him: if his family were still alive, he would just be a boy right now. Only nineteen years old. Perhaps he’d be in university, instead. Maybe he would have met Leorio the normal way, at school, with Leorio doing pre-med and Kurapika doing something like art history--and he’d be broke, sure, but his mom would send him letters with cash and tell him to treat himself to a warm meal at the restaurant at the university commons.
But no.
In reality, his mother had been forced to watch as her family was killed, until her eyes went red with rage, and those very same eyes were pulled from her skull while she begged for The Phantom Troupe to stop. She died furious and afraid and alone because Kurapika wasn’t there.
He had no family. No money.
He did, however, have to eat.
Kurapika made it to the restaurant just after they ended breakfast service. He stood in front of the wooden doors, staring at a sign that read CLOSED TIL NOON , and sighed wearily. He was used to skipping meals, but he wanted coffee so terribly. It would keep him from feeling the more severe effects of his restless night.
“Good morning,” came Hisoka’s friendly voice, clear and well-rested and nowhere near the rough erotic growl Kurapika made up in his sleep. “I got you a coffee before they closed the doors.”
Kurapika turned to see that Hisoka did, in fact, have two mugs in each hand. Kurapika couldn’t keep the frown from his face, because skepticism was better than awe. How had Hisoka known?
Instead Kurapika asked, “Why?”
“I was bored in my room. I spent the morning reading here.” Hisoka gestured to the small red plaid couch seated before a roaring fireplace in the lobby, the cushions lumpy from where he was seated, his book folded over the arm. “And I noticed you hadn’t made it out. Figured i’d get a second cup in case you showed up.” He held the mug aloft.
Hisoka was always unsettlingly observant--it ranged, in Kurapika’s experience, from casual notice to outright stalking. This time it felt somewhere in the middle. He was dressed down this morning--a pair of high-waisted gray sweatpants and a white crop-top that showed only the slightest sliver of his defined abdomen. His hair was down, too, dyed a baby pink at the moment, wrinkled with natural curls that Kurapika wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. Kurapika asked, eyes narrowed, “Were you waiting for me?”
“No. I was just reading. That’s all.”
Fine. Kurapika took the mug, took a sip, and let himself have just the briefest moment of peace. The coffee was still warm and bitingly black, just like he liked it. But that was surely just luck on Hisoka’s part and not something he realized Kurapika preferred. Surely. Finally, in the long silence between them, Kurapika said, “Thank you.”
He looked up to see Hisoka watching him with an almost meticulous curiosity in his unsettling yellow eyes.
“What?” Kurapika asked.
“Oh, Mr. Morow, you were right,” said an old, soft-looking woman wearing an apron, carrying several folded towels. She smiled and bowed in greeting to Kurapika. “Mr. Morow got a second cup of coffee because he said you’d show up after we stopped serving breakfast.”
Kurapika didn’t acknowledge her--or Hisoka. His mind, sleepy and weary, couldn’t handle thinking of anything related to friends and kindness and--
He didn’t want to grapple with the idea of Hisoka being kind.
Certainly Hisoka had demonstrated many times in the past that he was thoughtful, but it just made things easier for Kurapika to think of him as a perverted, obsessive antagonist. Kurapika opened his room door.
“So sorry,” Distantly, he overheard Hisoka apologizing to the worker. “He’s still grieving a loss, I think. It’s not personal.”
“Oh no. The poor th--”
Kurapika closed the door to his room.
He made it a point to emerge before lunch service wrapped, because he didn’t want to skip another meal, and the meals were included in the cost of the room. He had to get his money’s worth.
Fortunately for Kurapika, Hisoka was nowhere to be found.
“Hi there,” said one of the waitstaff. “Chicken or fish?”
“Do you have--I--” Kurapika felt himself flush. “Would it be possible to just get sides?”
“Are you vegetarian?”
Kurapika nodded in one short, jerky movement, all too aware that he’d been rude to the staff earlier, and now he was asking for special treatment.
“I’ll have them prepare the chicken dish but with a sweet potato instead. Would that work?”
Kurapika nodded again.
“Awesome.”
“Can I ask--” Kurapika glanced at the frosted window, able to see only a fraction of the snowfall through the dim light, even midday. The cloud cover was going strong. “Is the forecast the same?”
“Yeah,” sighed the waiter. “We’ll be free in five more days. Don’t worry, though; we’ve got provisions stocked up. No one’ll go hungry.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. Do you need anything else?”
Kurapika shook his head no and the waiter left, towards the kitchen door.
Kurapika sank into his seat. He needed to clear his head. Metaphorically exorcize the demons that haunted his thoughts. And this was as good of a place as any to do it; he had no choice but to stay in one place and sleep and eat and train for days, thanks to the blizzard outside. He needed to rid himself of all the emotions that’d built up in his heart over the last several months.
The rage could stay. The rage made him strong. Gave him focus.
But the loneliness. The desire. The mourning--
He wasn’t allowed to mourn. He had a mission. He had a list.
After eating lunch--it was delicious, even customized as it was--Kurapika made his way to the dance hall in the other set of double doors in the lobby. It was a wide enough space to train in and it was empty, obviously, as all the events had been canceled due to weather.
But he should have expected Hisoka.
Kurapika considered himself a very driven man and still Hisoka undoubtedly had him beat with his obsession over strength and fighting and power.
Kurapika watched, standing in the doorway, as Hisoka gracefully rolled into a handstand and slowly lowered himself, nose nearly kissing the floor, and then pushed himself back up. A set of handstand pushups?
Surely he was showing off. Kurapika scoffed, audibly, and Hisoka’s face curled into a mischievous grin.
“Hello,” said Hisoka, continuing his effortless--but undoubtedly difficult--reps. “Again, I don’t think I have to ask why you’re here.”
Kurapika said, “Do you mind if I use this space to train as well?”
“Please do.” Hisoka dropped to his feet, standing again with the sort of light footed grace that would be uncharacteristic for most men with his stature. “I thought about suggesting we spar, but your skills are uniquely limited, aren’t they?”
Kurapika pulled the tunic over his head, masking his rolled eyes. “I’m a capable fighter without nen.”
“Not as capable as me,” said Hisoka, and when Kurapika turned to glare at his hubris, he realized Hisoka wasn’t teasing or goading at all. He meant it. A fact, as simple as any other. The sky is blue. Hisoka is one of the strongest fighters in the world. “I don’t mean to insult you. Your nen is--” A smile unfurled across his parted lips, revealing sharp canines that Kurapika remembered tasting in his dream. “Delicious.” The flirtatious grin dropped as easily as it started and Hisoka gave a casual, relaxed shrug. “But it’s useless against me.”
“I suppose that’s the only reason I’m not on your kill list. It’d be no fun.” Kurapika began stretching. Hisoka was obviously very flexible, but Kurapika was certain he’d have him beat if he warmed up. His flexibility was one of his most natural strengths; he hardly needed to train to do the splits. It’d been that way his whole life.
“Not the only,” said Hisoka.
Absently, Kurapika said, “Oh? What else is there?”
Hisoka was quiet for long enough that Kurapika looked up from where he was stretching his hamstrings. “We share a common enemy.”
Kurapika looked back to his toes and then into his shins. “That’s true.”
“I actually think we’ve got quite a bit in common beyond that, too.”
Kurapika rolled his spine to standing. “Doubtful.”
“Yes, perhaps I’m mistaken. What do I know about you, really? An orphan fighting for his life because what else is there to do.”
An icy rage pulsed Kurapika’s veins. He took a step forward and said, voice low, “Don’t pretend to know what I’ve been through.”
Hisoka’s smile matched his gentle voice as he said, “I was describing myself.”
“I--” Kurapika’s rage vanished with a blink. “Oh.”
An awkward silence followed for some time. Kurapika returned to his stretches, ignoring the oppressive lack of sound.
Hisoka returned to his handstand pushups.
Perhaps they had some similar history, and a common nemesis, but beyond that--they were nothing alike.
And then Kurapika’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out to see Leorio’s name and froze. It was only hours ago that he’d--
“You should answer it,” said Hisoka, leaning over Kurapika’s shoulder to read the phone’s screen.
Kurapika rejected the call and spun away from Hisoka. “Mind your business.”
“I thought you two were friends,” said Hisoka. “You seemed close.”
“We are friends.”
“So you should answer his calls.” Hisoka pointed, his sharp and manicured nail wagging as he spoke. “It’s not nice to ignore someone.”
“We just talked. He can wait until later.”
“I see.” Hisoka turned away and started doing a warm-down, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms. “How is the fine young Leorio?”
Kurapika didn’t hide the rolling of his eyes this time. “Save it. You don’t actually care.”
“I do,” Hisoka said, offering a cartoonish pout. “Leorio was one of my favorites in the whole exam. Bursting with potential. And he’s so tall…” His eyes went distant. “Handsome, too.”
Kurapika shook off his disgust. “He’s fine, thank you.”
“Oh, good. It’s a pity he doesn’t like men.”
Kurapika wasn’t stupid. He knew when he was being--goaded, teased. Toyed with.
“Or perhaps I just wasn’t his type.”
“You’re not,” Kurapika snapped, unable to keep it to himself. Hisoka’s reply was a lighthearted laugh and Kurapika realized he’d fallen into the trap despite himself. “Shut up. Are you done? Leave already.”
“Fine, fine. I suppose I’ll see you at dinner tonight?”
“Don’t count on it.”
Truthfully, Kurapika was so exhausted from his lack of sleep, very little food eaten, and the half-dozen calls he’d gotten from Leorio that he just didn’t have the spirit to fight it when Hisoka sat at his table in the restaurant.
To be fair to Hisoka, he did ask, first. “I can sit at another table if you’d like.”
“I said it’s fine,” Kurapika mumbled.
“Good evening, Mr. Morow,” said the waitress. “Glad you’re back.”
“Where else would I go?” Hisoka asked.
The waitress giggled. “You could have ordered food up to your room.”
Hisoka picked up a menu and hummed in interest. “Good to know.”
“You didn’t know?”
“Afraid not.”
Neither had Kurapika. He tried to keep his frustration out of his voice as he said, “I don’t think either of us were informed about that option.”
“I’m so sorry. We’ve been running around the last few days prepping for the storm--” She bowed once, deeply. “An oversight.”
“That’s alright,” said Hisoka. “No harm done.” His eyes met Kurapika’s from across the table and seemed to twinkle. “There’s not much to do around here with the storm going on, really. Coming down to the restaurant gives me an excuse to get out.”
“That’s very true,” said the waitress, beaming at Hisoka, one hand twirling a bit of her copper hair nervously. “Still, allow me to make up for the mistake. I’ll bring you two a bottle of my favorite wine. You drink red?”
Hisoka smirked. “I love reds.”
Kurapika nearly lost his appetite. “Red wine is fine,” he said, voice clipped.
The sound of his voice seemed to knock some sense into the waitress. She giggled. “Great. I’ll have that out shortly.” She vanished, her steps clip-clip-clipping on the rustic wood floors.
“Sea bass,” said Hisoka, pursuing the menu. “That sounds nice.”
“I don’t eat fish,” said Kurapika. When Hisoka raised an eyebrow in question, he elaborated, “I’m vegetarian.”
“Oh,” said Hisoka, sounding surprised, and then he said, almost by accident, “So’s Illumi.”
It took a minute for Kurapika to place the name. “Killua’s brother?”
Hisoka’s face dropped ever-so-slightly, but it was enough for Kurapika to lean in, eyes narrowed. “Yes. Killua’s oldest brother.”
“The assassin.”
“Well, all his brothers are assassins, but yes.”
“The pretty one,” Kurapika said.
Hisoka seemed to be holding something back as he said, “All his brothers are pretty, too.”
Kurapika scoffed. “I doubt that.”
“No, it’s true. The Zoldycks are all very--” a laugh bubbled out of Hisoka. “They’re a lovely-looking family.”
“It’s their insides that are rotten, then.”
“That’s not entirely fair.”
“I know what they did to Killua. Do you?”
Hisoka lowered his menu. “Better than you do, I suspect.”
Kurapika was confused for only one moment longer and then clarity came to him like clouds parting to reveal a crystal blue sky. “You like Illumi.”
Hisoka shrugged, eyes falling shut, and Kurapika knew--without evidence, of course--that Hisoka was putting on a show. “We’re friends.”
Kurapika looked as baffled as he felt. “Why?”
“When two people have compatible tastes, they can find companionship. Should I continue to explain the concept of friendship? Or perhaps we should wait for your phone to ring another call from sweet Mr. Leorio.”
Kurapika’s face tinted red. “Whatever. Forget it.”
Their wine arrived and as Kurapika gave it a taste, his mind wandered into the past again. To Illumi. Assassins don’t have friends , he said.
It was on his third glass that Kurapika finally said it out loud. “Assassins don’t have friends.”
“Hm?” Hisoka looked up from his plate.
“Illumi said that assassins didn’t have friends.”
“He did, didn’t he?”
“I doubt he wants to be your friend, then.”
Hisoka tilted his head back and forth. “Yes, well.”
“Have you tried to sleep with him?” Three glasses of wine before he finished his entree was, maybe, a mistake.
Hisoka seemed to hide behind his fork as he said, “Curious about my sexual habits, Kurapika?”
“Sort of.”
Hisoka said, finally, “He’s not interested in that.”
“Ah. I und…” He trailed off, his brain finally catching up enough with his tongue to make him stop. This conversation was very unnecessary.
“You do understand, I think,” Hisoka said.
“No,” said Kurapika.
“Perhaps it’s not identical, your relationship with Leorio.”
“It’s not.”
“But it’s similar.”
“Not really,” Kurapika said. “Leorio and I have had sex.”
Oh.
“Oh,” said Hisoka.
Oh, he didn’t want to have said that.
Kurapika knocked back the last of his wine and the bitter-sweet-sour taste of it felt like punishment.