Chapter Text
Kurapika steps back into the room a little less than ten minutes later, chest bare and a towel wrapped around his waist. His golden hair is wet and curling at the edges. Kuroro’s mouth turns dry at the sight.
Kurapika notices him staring. The blond seems to weigh his attention, considering it, before saying, “You want me.” It isn’t a question. Not an accusation, either, but something oddly curious.
A droplet of water slides down the Kurta’s collarbone. Kuroro wants to track its descent with his tongue.
“Yes.” He doesn’t even try to deny it. He knows his gaze must seem hungry, starving.
From one blink to the next, Kurapika crosses the distance between them.
“Kurapika—”
Kurapika drops the towel and Kuroro forgets the concept of thinking in its entirety.
Kuroro has never felt greed like this.
Kurapika had already kissed him. Kuroro still feels the burn of it against his jaw, and yet he craves more. He wants to feel those scorching lips against his own, wants to hear what lovely sounds Kurapika makes when he comes apart beneath him. Wants to consume Kurapika whole, be consumed by him —
“You can touch me.” Kurapika’s amused voice snaps him out of his trance. Kuroro's tongue turns to lead in his mouth.
“Dare I?”
Threads of crimson dance within blue as Kurapika steps even closer, coming to stop between Kuroro’s knees. Kurapika bends down, lips distractingly close to Kuroro’s ear. The man’s scent, rich and peppery sweet, swirls in the air between them.
“You said you wish to please me,” Kurapika says. Kuroro’s hands clench by his sides, restraining the urge to touch, to caress. Kurapika’s voice drops into something absolutely filthy, intoxicating. “So please me.”
It’s Kuroro who leans in first this time. He swallows Kurapika’s gasp of surprise as he pulls the blond, blessedly naked and squirming, into his lap. Kurapika kisses him back as if answering a challenge, all teeth and tongue and fire and it makes Kuroro burn with want. His hands anchor themselves at Kurapika’s hips, guiding the Kurta to grind against him.
Nothing could have prepared him for the sweet moan that flutters past Kurapika’s parted lips as their cocks brush together for the first time. Kuroro curses, hands tightening on Kurapika as he matches him with a languid roll of his hips. He wants to take this slow, to savor this gift that the universe has granted him. But the way that Kurapika goes pliant in his lap, his body soaking up every drop of pleasure Kuroro gives him, gasping so hotly with each thrust, makes Kuroro want to just flip the blond onto his back and rut into those supple thighs until he loses himself completely.
Kuroro buries his face into the crook of Kurapika's shoulder. He needs to be patient. He needs to drive Kurapika mad with his touch, satisfy him so thoroughly that Kurapika knows that no man or woman would please him just so.
Kuroro presses his lips to Kurapika’s throat, itching to sink his teeth in, to taste Kurapika’s bright, copper blood on his tongue. But he can't.
Tonight is a mere fluke.
He knows that Kurapika’s loving caresses aren’t meant for him. He knows that when Kurapika looks into his eyes, gaze so open and full of emotion, it’s meant for another man, one that Kurapika longs for but will never accept.
The only thing Kurapika wants from him is a momentary distraction from the grief, the bitterness. That's why the Kurta’s hands are tangled in his hair instead of crushed against his throat, touch soft instead of bruising. Kurapika hates him, despises him with a cold ferocity that Kuroro can never hope to understand.
Tonight will not happen again.
And so he contents himself with pressing kisses to Kurapika’s neck, drinking up every tremble and sigh from the blond as he sucks bruises into that perfect skin.
“So good, so perfect,” Kuroro murmurs against Kurapika’s neck. He isn’t sure who he’s talking to, Kurapika or himself, but Kurapika shivers at the praise anyway.
It’s nowhere near enough—Kuroro’s cock still aches painfully in his slacks as Kurapika’s movements grow more erratic. Kurapika’s hands fly for purchase on Kuroro’s shoulders, each fingertip searing through the material of Kuroro’s shirt. Kurapika is close, Kuroro can feel it, see it in the crimson that burns in the other man’s half lidded eyes.
Just the thought of Kurapika, glassy-eyed and boneless from his climax, nearly sends Kuroro over the edge. He grips Kurapika’s thighs tighter, pulling him closer so that the next time Kuroro thrusts against him Kurapika keens, nails digging into his shoulders. He continues with this torturous pace, mouthing at the juncture of Kurapika’s neck where he’s learned Kurapika is sensitive. His hand reaches between them, wanting his hand to be the one to bring Kurapika off, only to be stopped by a steel grip on his wrist. Startled, Kuroro rears back, nearly pulling Kurapika with him.
“Kurapika?” he asks, suddenly worried that the blond has changed his mind, has come to his senses. He expects Kurapika to push him away and curse at him.
Kurapika doesn't move, instead cocking his head to one side, coquettish.
“No,” Kurapika tells Kuroro sternly, commanding as if he hadn’t been moaning so shamelessly just moments earlier. He looks so painfully beautiful like this—eyes shifting shards of scarlet and wine, cheeks flushed pink and lips swollen.
“No?” Kuroro echoes, trying not to sound too relieved. He takes Kurapika’s hand, kisses the delicate bones of his wrist, then his palm, then his fingertips. Tender, tender. Kurapika snatches his hand away,
“Not yet,” Kurapika repeats. He sits up in Kuroro’s lap and suddenly Kuroro gets the sense that he is being cornered. Kurapika towers over him, the honeyed lamplight casting his hair in a golden halo.
Kurapika’s hand tilts his chin up so that Kuroro has no choice but to gaze up at him. It's then that Kuroro understands that he will lose. As he has been losing, ever since he had seen that damned blond man in the Black Whale’s banquet hall. He had been a fool to think he'd had any power at all in this situation.
Kurapika must see the shift in his eyes because his kiss-blown lips stretch into a smile. He leans ever closer, silken curls brushing against Kuroro’s face. Then, eyes glinting hard as rubies, he says, “I want your mouth. Will you do that for me?”
Kuroro has Kurapika on the bed before the Kurta can even finish his sentence. He scrambles in between Kurapika’s legs, hands shaking in anticipation as he kneads Kurapika’s thighs apart. But Kurapika stops him yet again with a manicured hand on his shoulder.
“Your clothes,” Kurapika reminds him patiently.
Kuroro realizes he’s still fully clothed. Has been from the beginning. Mechanically, never once taking his eyes off of Kurapika, he peels off his dress shirt and pants.
When he returns to his place on the bed he’s treated to the sight of Kurapika, limbs splayed languidly on the narrow mattress and skin flushed a rosy copper. The way that the Kurta watches him under golden lashes, red lips parted and body arching off the mattress to meet Kuroro’s hands—a darker part of him hisses at him to just sheath his aching prick into the tempting body beneath him, to fuck Kurapika so hard that Kurapika won’t remember anything but Kuroro’s own name and the feeling of Kuroro’s cock filling him so perfectly.
Fuck. Kuroro’s so hard it hurts.
Kurapika just watches his torture with a faint smile. “Are you done staring?”
Obediently, Kuroro smooths his hands over Kurapika’s sides, leans down to kiss the blond’s navel, then his hip, then the softness of his inner thigh. The other man writhes against him, letting out hiccupy little gasps as Kuroro kisses up his thigh, stopping just short of Kurapika’s flushed and leaking cock.
Kurapika bucks impatiently. “Stop teasing—” he cuts off with a breathy gasp. Kuroro grins and licks another stripe up Kurapika’s shaft. He kisses the head, pulling just the tip past his lips. Traces the sensitive skin with his tongue. Kurapika’s panting now, hips canting upward in an attempt to chase more of Kuroro’s mouth. Kuroro shushes him with a hand on his hip, pinning him in place. He flicks his tongue around the slit of Kurapika’s cock and Kurapika cries out, a delicious, wanton sound that goes straight to Kuroro’s dick.
Kuroro decides it’s time to stop playing. Kurapika watches him, pupils so blown that his eyes are more black than red. Kuroro smiles, meets Kurapika’s burning gaze, and takes the man to the root.
The Kurta shouts something in a language he doesn’t recognize, legs automatically wrapping around Kuroro’s neck to keep him there. Kuroro begins to bob his head, working up and down the length of Kurapika’s cock and moaning at the taste, the feel of Kurapika in his mouth. .
Kurapika bites back shaky sobs as Kuroro picks up the pace. The few words that manage to escape past Kurapika’s lips are foreign, but Kuroro can grasp the meaning from the desperate jerks of Kurapika’s hips and the tears starting to gather in those golden lashes.
It doesn’t take long—Kurapika seems desperate to cum and Kuroro has always been indulgent. With one last swirl of his tongue, Kurapika’s body goes tight as a bow string, more of that trilling language flowing past his lips like water as Kurapika spills hot into Kuroro’s mouth.
Kuroro swallows every drop, doesn't stop until Kurapika is squirming, overstimulated. Only then does he pull off of Kurapika's cock, making sure the man is watching as Kuroro licks his lips with a satisfied hum. “So,” Kuroro says as he sits back on his haunches, tracking the way that Kurapika's red rimmed eyes follow him, still hazy and unfocused from his climax, “have I pleased you?”
A spark of irritation flickers in Kurapika’s gaze at Kuroro’s clear satisfaction. The blond sits up on his elbows, one hand beckoning Kuroro closer.
Obediently, Kuroro places his hands on either side of Kurapika’s waist, leaning forward so that the next breath Kurapika takes mingles with his.
Kurapika looks up at him, eyes heavy-lidded and still burning crimson, as if Kuroro’s touch had hardly been able to satiate him.
Either that, or more likely, Kurapika is angry.
Still Kurapika allows Kuroro to press him back down into the bed. The slide of Kurapika’s scorching skin against his nearly makes Kuroro moan and it’s growing increasingly more noticeable to both of them that he's still achingly hard.
Kurapika tilts his chin up, brushes his lips against Kuroro’s. The noise that Kuroro makes when Kurapika’s teeth scrape against his bottom lip is nearly pitiful. Kuroro’s hands clench against the sheets. He wants so badly to pin the other man down and take him and find out what kind of sounds Kurapika makes when he's being fucked.
But he knows better.
Kurapika just smiles against his lips, pulling away.
“Yes,” he says, voice low, “you have pleased me.” Kurapika places a hand on Kuroro’s chest, feeling the frantic thud of his heartbeat. Kurapika’s smile grows teeth. “But do not expect me to return the favor.” Then he pushes Kuroro, hard.
It's only due to Kuroro’s enhanced reflexes that he's able to stop himself from toppling onto the floor.
“I would never,” Kuroro replies, so easily because he knows it's true. Perhaps it’s a sign of just how far gone that he is, that all Kuroro can do is crawl back up to Kurapika's side and take it as a blessing that he isn't pushed away.
Desire still throbs through his blood, but Kuroro just contents himself in the warm form of Kurapika in his arms. He listens to the sound of the blond’s breaths rising and falling, relishes its even beat.
The pure satisfaction that he feels in this moment should be alarming. Kurapika's intention had been clear; to use him and to make him suffer all the while. And yet Kuroro and that strange thing wrapped tightly around his heart can only delight in the fact that he has been allowed to stay, if just for this night.
Kuroro falls asleep first and sleeps soundly for the first time in a year.
It’s not entirely a surprise that he wakes up to an empty bed the next morning. Pale blue light slips in through the thin slats of the cabin’s window, signaling that dawn has not yet arrived. Kuroro wonders if Kurapika had slept at all, or if he had simply bided his time until Kuroro fell asleep to slip out from his grasp. Tentatively, he sends out a current of his nen, spreading himself like a delicate net over the entirety of the Black Whale, searching.
A part of him expects not to feel a trace of the Kurta at all—Kurapika had no reason not to hide himself away from the prying eyes of Kuroro’s nen. Their deal is over, a clown found and eyes delivered, and yet Kuroro hopes —
Kurapika’s presence lights up like a beacon on one of the upper viewing desks, aura bright as a dying star. Kuroro’s chest clenches.
He had decided, the very moment that his hands had reached out beside and found nothing but cold sheets, that there would be no going back from this. Even if Kurapika had shielded himself from him, Kuroro would have torn the entire ship apart before letting the blond leave. He had planned to hound the blond, to stick to his shadows whether Kurapika wanted him to or not.
But the thought that perhaps Kurapika wants him to find him, wants something from him, anything—Kuroro is dressed and out the door before he can register what he’s doing. That invisible chain around his heart tugs him like a fishing line and Kuroro is helpless against it.
The tang of sea-salted air greets him as he pushes out onto the viewing deck. The sun has just started its slow hike up the horizon, tinging the blond’s silhouette in rosy glow. Kurapika doesn’t turn around to look at him as he approaches. The only sign that he’s acknowledged Kuroro’s presence is a slight tilt of his head to one side, the movement revealing one of the bruises marking the delicate curve of Kurapik’s neck. Kuroro remembers kissing it there, remembers the warmth of Kurapika’s skin against his lips.
“It is not often that I find myself without my lover come morning,” Kuroro says, tone aiming for light but landing closer to petulant. “How cold of you.”
“I am not your lover,” Kurapika snaps. Kuroro watches as Kurapika’s hands go white-knuckled on the railing. “What that was—it was just a distraction.” The blond’s voice is harsh and measured, aimed to hurt. Kuroro just smiles.
Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?
“I know,” he says instead. Kuroro looks out onto the misty fog of the horizon. “But an enjoyable one, was it not?” Kurapika doesn’t reply, but the slight twitch in his jaw tells Kuroro all he needs to know.
After a moment of silence, Kurapika finally turns to face him, expression carefully composed.
“I had planned to release you from” —Kurapika gestures vaguely at Kuroro’s chest— “whatever it is I have afflicted you with—”
“Love,” Kuroro interrupts, the organ in his chest clenching mutinously. Kurapika laughs, the sound cutting.
“Yes, sure.” The blond’s eyes narrow. “But then I thought that that would've been too easy. Too merciful.” Kurapika turns away from him, looking out onto the golden line of the horizon. “I meant what I said.” The morning light casts his face in a soft glow, near angelic. “I want you to suffer .”
Kuroro can't stop himself from moving closer, bracketing Kurapika against the railing. Surprisingly, Kurapika lets him. The Spider props his chin up on the man’s shoulder, burrowing his nose into the crook of his neck. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the other’s scent.
“If my suffering is what you desire,” Kuroro says into Kurapika’s skin, delighting as the blond shivers against him, “then you shall have it.” He presses a kiss to Kurapika's throat, feels his pulse quicken underneath his lips. “But know that you will never win against me.”
Kurapika tenses in his arms. “I have already won,” he grits out. “It is my power that binds you. I plan to let you continue to be a slave to this obsession you have over me, but someday, I will crush you with it.”
“And yet I have been allowed to love you for now,” Kuroro replies easily. He spins Kurapika to face him. The man’s eyes flicker, blue fighting against red. “I am a man of momentary desires. Surely, you must know that.”
“Yes. And you are a fool for it,” Kurapika says, icy even as his breathing hitches, Kuroro’s teeth catching the sensitive turn of his jaw.
“A fool, perhaps,” Kuroro hums, words ghosting the shell of Kurapika’s ear, “but not a losing one.”
“You disgust me,” Kurapika hisses, startling Kuroro with an iron grip on his neck, throwing him back. Kuroro goes obediently but he will not let the man push him away. He pries off the hand crushing into his throat and kisses it, relishing the cold bite of metal against his skin.
“I confuse you,” Kuroro corrects, easily capturing Kurapika's other hand as it swings to hit him. Kurapika struggles in his hold but he won't let go.
“Face it,” he says, pressing his lips to each link of metal that traces up the man’s pointer finger. “A piece of you has burrowed itself within me, taken root and flourished even as you spurned it.” He looks up, surprised to see Kurapika’s jewel bright eyes already burning through him.
“See what you have made of me,” he continues, tugging Kurapika’s now limp hands to his chest. He's sure Kurapika can feel it—the ugly, irregular thumping of his heart as it raves in the face of its master. “See what you have reduced me to, and know that there is no escaping me now—”
“And if I've changed my mind?” Kurapika cuts in, even as his hands dig into the fabric of Kuroro’s shirt dragging him closer. “If I uproot that thing that ties you to me; what then?”
Kuroro cocks his head to one side; gives the man his most winning smile. “Then you would have relinquished the one power you had over me, and I will chase you to the ends of the earth nonetheless.”
Kurapika seems to almost relax at his words and Kuroro presses the advantage. “I'm not giving you a choice, my dear. Torture me, ignore me, embrace me—it makes no difference. Throw me away and I will continue to follow you. Just know that you have made me yours, and there is nothing you can do to change that.”
Several beats of silence pass as Kurapika mulls over his promise. The Kurta’s face is a maelstrom of emotions and for the first time Kuroro feels that he sees the young man as he is—so desperately lost and alone.
“I will never accept you,” Kurapika says finally, eyes flickering to meet his. Kuroro cups his cheek. Almost imperceptibly, Kurapika leans into his touch.
“That is not what I ask.”
“I don't think I could ever even like you.”
“Then don't.” Kuroro presses a kiss to the blond’s temple, folds him up into his arms as the chilly sea air blows. The other man remains limp in his hold but doesn't push him away. Kuroro squeezes him tighter against his chest.
“I will still kill you,” Kurapika mumbles into his shoulder, “someday.” Yet his voice sounds tired, unenthused, as if killing Kuroro is simply another chore he must complete.
Kuroro’s heart feels horrifyingly soft. He smiles against Kurapika’s hair. “I would have no other,” he says.
Later, as he watches bands of sunlight flit across Kurapika’s sleeping face, limbs still tangled in Kuroro’s sheets, he realizes that that had been the easiest truth he’s told in years.