Battlefield - Chapter 06 - 4995 words
Note: another chapter of this.... which will hopefully not end up a massive long fic again. this is infodump lol.
Beta-reader: unbeta'ed
Chapter title: still untitled
Chapter 06
untitled
Kurapica woke up; that was the first surprise.
He couldn’t say that it was a bad sort of surprise, but it was one nonetheless. He was lying on a narrow bed, the room bathed in shadows, but just light enough to be able to see. He lifted his head and recognized the quarantine area, the heavy drapes on the windows a dead giveaway. He could see some sunlight try to peer around the edges of the curtains, but he couldn’t tell what time of day it was, only that it was daylight.
Carefully, he pushed himself into a seated position and looked around him. Kuroro had gone, having somehow managed to slip out of the room without Kurapica noticing anything. That alone was more than a little worrisome; Kurapica wouldn’t normally have slept through someone moving from behind him like this. He touched the mattress next to him and it still felt a little warm, but he couldn’t tell if it was because he’d moved around in his sleep, or if Kuroro had been lying next to him until quite recently.
He got to his feet and walked to one of the windows, pushing the curtain aside to look out onto the street, trying to determine the time of day. The sun was pretty high in the sky, so it had to be sometime close to noon. The emotions he’d gone through must have exhausted his body, because he remembered it being afternoon when Kuroro had dragged him back to the base. He must have slept close to twenty hours. He hoped that it wasn’t due to the bite.
He glanced at his bandaged hand, noticing that it had slipped a little during his sleep. Leaning his hand down against the windowsill, he used his other hand to tug gently at the knot, trying to make it come loose so he could have a look at the skin underneath. It took some doing, but he eventually managed to undo the knot, and he gently unwrapped his hand, hissing softly as air hit his abused skin. As expected, there was the sharp imprint of teeth on either side of the edge of his palm-dark, nearly black, with a nasty-looking, deep bruise in the middle. It looked pretty horrible.
He felt himself, however; that was the second surprise.
He didn’t feel lost inside, felt completely in control of his own movements, and didn’t hunger for anything overly morbid. Against all expectations, he had both survived the bite and not turned rabid. Turning his hand this way and that, he frowned to himself, but was distracted from his thoughts as he heard slow, careful footsteps out in the atrium, heading towards the pawn shop. The sound stopped by the door, then came keys jiggling and finally one of them sliding into the lock and turning.
Kurapica opened and closed his hand a few times as turned to face the door fully. He watched it open slowly, which is why he spotted Kuroro nearly dropping a tray and some travel mugs as he tried to get his hand from the knob without spilling anything. Kurapica studied him with narrowed eyes, not going over to help, despite the obvious struggle to manage a large tray, two travel mugs, a set of keys and a heavy door with only two hands. Kuroro managed to somehow keep everything under control and walk into the room without dropping anything, when he spotted Kurapica and let the door clang shut behind him.
“Kurapica,” he greeted. “How’re you feeling?”
He shoved the keys into a pocket and transferred the tray to his newly freed hand, which allowed him to better hold the mugs against his chest with his other arm. He set the food down on the nightstand closest to the door, then grabbed one of the travel mugs he’d wedged into the crook of his elbow.
“I thought you’d like coffee,” he added, when Kurapica simply crossed his arms and took a step back from him. “You seemed to be sleeping fairly deeply, so I only stepped out for a minute to get you some breakfast.”
Kurapica hesitated a moment, then he pursed his lips and extended a hand to accept the beverage from Kuroro, twisting the part of the cap that opened the holes that would allow him to drink. He took a sip and was further annoyed to realize that he had put just the same amount of creamer Kurapica had used himself. Or perhaps annoyed wasn’t the right word. He wasn’t sure how he felt about all of this anymore. Kuroro still set him on edge and yet….
Yet, he’d held him as Kurapica panicked, promised not to let him become his worst nightmare. He could nearly feel the body warmth against his back even now, like a phantom caress, trying to soothe him when he wanted to stay on his guards.
“I have a shitload of questions to ask you,” he all but growled, pointing at Kuroro with the hand holding the mug, “and I don’t want any of those slippery non-answers this time.”
Kuroro arched his eyebrows and had an odd smile, but he sat on the bed closest to him and took a sip of his own mug. He made an oddly delicate wave with his hand. “Ask away,” he said pleasantly, and his calm made Kurapica grit his teeth in frustration. He’d had enough of this man acting like he owned the world and was unimpressed by anything he found in it.
Kurapica leaned his back against the window behind him, trying to erase the memory of Kuroro’s warmth. The cool glass helped somewhat, but he still felt slightly unhinged, as if sitting on a chair where all the legs were different heights. He didn’t trust the man to give a straight answer, but he had to try, at the very least.
He watched Kuroro for a few moments, running over everything he’d experienced, heard and learned in the past few weeks. Without even asking the man, a few things were already clicking into place.
He’d been scratched, the thing had drawn blood and he’d been fine.
He’d been bitten, skin broken and everything, and he was fine.
Click.
He took another sip of the warm liquid to steady himself. “So,” he began, then slid the tip of his tongue forward to wet his lower lip, before continuing, “this bacteria that made everyone sick-is immunity possible?”
Kuroro’s smile pulled a little higher on the right side, giving him a lopsided semi-smile that almost looked smug. “Yes.”
Of course. That made a lot of sense. Kurapica had never ever heard of anyone being immune to it before, not in the years he’d travelled before finding his way back to his village, not from anyone he’d travelled with back then, not from any news source when there were still such things as reporters. But that didn’t mean that immunity was entirely out of the reach of possibilities.
So, Kurapica was immune. All of this time feeling deathly afraid of something which could, it seemed, never happen to him in the first place. He was fine, he was safe, he could focus on fighting the things without ever needing to fear becoming one of them. His chances of survival had just increased to near certainty. The relief nearly took him off his feet, but he took another sip of coffee to cover it.
He was immune and….
“Only those who were scratched, but did not become infected.”
“I think you would be much more useful to this group as one of the raiding parties.”
“You’ll be perfectly fine.”
“What have you to fear?”
“It would be ridiculous to avoid the plague, only to be killed by a simple infection from an untreated wound.”
Click.
“You knew I was immune,” Kurapica continued. “That’s why you’ve been so concerned with me, when people in the camp kept swearing up and down you never bother with anyone outside of your Spiders. You knew I was immune to the bacteria that destroyed everything.”
“I didn’t know-” Kuroro began.
“Do not lie to me,” Kurapica hissed at him, stepping away from the wall to stare down at the man sitting before him.
“I did not know,” the Spider Head said again, the smile falling from his lips, “but I suspected.”
Kurapica settled back again and some of the tension left his body as he digested that slowly, taking a few sips of the delicious brew as he turned Kuroro’s words over in his head. He himself had never even suspected that such a thing was even remotely possible, before this day, and the thought that anyone would consider it an option made him a little wary. How had Kuroro even known that it was a possibility? How had he decided, with just the few faint lines that were all that remained of Kurapica’s scratches, that the Kuruta might be somehow completely protected from the virulent infection? Unless….
“You’ve met some before-people who were immune to the disease entirely.”
“Only a very few,” Kuroro agreed. “It seems to be extremely rare, so I couldn’t just assume that you were based on the few healed scratches you had when you came here. But I knew it was a strong possibility. The disease is extremely virulent, and I was fairly sure someone who did not have natural immunity would have turned, even with only a few light wounds like the ones you had.”
There were so many things that Kuroro was saying and yet not saying with this sentence, Kurapica huffed with irritation. He had to stop reacting to the older man, had to focus on the lines of inquiries that would get somewhere.
“A very few,” he echoed. “How many?”
Kuroro met his gaze in a very serious, solemn gaze that made Kurapica want to hide, or shiver, or at the very least look away. He didn’t say anything, didn’t answer the question, and if Kurapica had to hazard a guess as to his thinking, he would say that the man was trying to will him to understand, to figure it all out on his own.
“Do you have a Spider tattoo?”
“I would not expect that from anyone but a Spider.”
“I would, and whomever of my Spiders feel like having a bit of sport.”
Click.
“The Spiders,” Kurapica began slowly. He noticed Kuroro’s face shutting down, his expression growing carefully blank, even as his gaze grew heavier. This wasn’t the blank stare of someone trying to protect themself, however, but the gaze of a man trying not to give anything away while still hoping for his interlocutor to understand more than he was saying. The dark eyes made Kurapica wet his lips and resist the urge to cross his arms before him, as they made him feel cold, made him feel warm, made him feel too many things at once.
He took another sip of coffee to compose himself, trying to will his emotions under control. It was probably a side effect of thinking he was going to die and then ending up very much alive, it wasn’t anything to concern himself with, not at present. He just had to keep calm, to keep himself focused on the conversation at hand.
Because, he realized, he was absolutely right, and this had everything to do with the group of people Kuroro had surrounded himself with. “The Spiders are all immune. That’s why people asked me if I had a tattoo-you asked me the same thing and-”
He blinked, gasping in shock, nearly dropping his travel mug with the strength of the sudden realization that hit him like a freight train.
“I mean to verify that you don’t have a tattoo. If you do not, then I will help you. You may keep your underwear. They do not mark such personal areas.”
“They?”
“I am unwilling to divulge more at the moment.”
Click.
“Who are you?” Kurapica asked, his voice awed and horrified all at once. “The Spiders-your people…. Just-who the fuck are you?”
“If I find out, I’ll let you know.”
Click.
“Tell me,” Kurapica asked, his throat suddenly so tight, he nearly choked on the words. “Tell me who you are, what you are.”
Kuroro sighed, deep and slow. “We’re the Spiders,” he began, then he looked down at his own, mostly ignored mug and brought it up as if he were to take a sip, but then he lowered it without bringing it all the way to his mouth.
“Please don’t play games,” Kurapica demanded, begged, he wasn’t even sure. “This is important. I need to know, Kuroro. Who are you? Is Kuroro even your name?”
There was a long, drawn out pause, where Kuroro lifted his head to regard the high ceiling as if it held the answers to all of Kurapica’s questions. He turned the mug within the circle of his hands, around and around and around like a carousel. Yet for someone who exhibited signs of mental discomfort, his expression was utterly blank, showing absolutely nothing of his inner thoughts.
“I chose the name,” he said at length. “I didn’t have one of my own.”
“Who doesn’t have a name?” Kurapica asked, puzzled by this straightforward answer than somehow managed to derail his line of questioning somewhat. “Didn’t your parents give you one?”
Kuroro lowered his gaze to meet with the blond’s. “I don’t know,” he answered, still seeming entirely truthful, “I don’t remember them. Do you remember yours?”
“Of course,” Kurapica said, trying to go for a light scoff but failing when he realized that perhaps his assumptions about anyone’s childhood were ill-placed here. He cleared his throat. “I left home when I was twelve. I remember my parents.”
Kuroro nodded slowly as if that was the answer that he had expected. “From what I’ve read, that seems to be the norm,” he said slowly.
Kurapica took a hesitant step forward, then another, and finally came to sit at the foot of the bed, leaving over a metre of distance between them. He looked down to the travel mug in his hand for a minute or so, then took a sip. He was a bit at a loss with how to deal with Kuroro’s admission, and even more unsure about how to return to his previous line of inquiry. For one thing, Kuroro’s lack of knowledge about his parentage made the blond question his earlier conclusions about the Spiders.
“Are all the Spiders like you?” he asked at length. “Do some of them remember parents, family?”
“I’ve never asked,” Kuroro said, then ran a hand through his hair. He’d gelled it back the previous day but it now looked all askew. Kurapica had to take a sip of coffee to keep himself from placing it back so Kuroro didn’t look so rumpled. The man didn’t even seem to notice, but put his hand back around his mug. “My guess is they’re like me.”
Kurapica nodded and sipped at his coffee, mulling over this information. After a moment, Kuroro gestured vaguely at the tray he’d brought. On it, Kurapica could see two plates, filled with berries, slices of bread, some of which were toasted, some not, a sort of scramble that looked like a mix of rice, vegetables and beans and a small bowl of what looked like jam.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Kuroro asked him.
Kurapica was indeed starving, but he couldn’t tell if this was just a case of the other man trying to avoid more questioning, in which case, he should perhaps hold off. He knew that he was resilient enough not to suffer from the lack of nutriment, but he also knew that sharing a meal with the Spider Head could help forge a stronger alliance between them and perhaps Kuroro would be more inclined to answer his questions.
In the end, he inclined his head and reached towards Kuroro, then waited until the man put a plate in his hand. He set it down on his knees and accepted the fork that Kuroro handed him. He started with the rice. The first bite went down nicely, and his stomach seemed to really wake up once it realized that it was being fed. For a few minutes, he was more concerned with the food than with the myriads of questions running around his head.
He noticed that Kuroro only ate the raw bread, so he handed him his slices and stole the pieces of toast in return. That earned him an amused half-smile from the Spider Head, who also pushed bits towards the side of his dish. Kurapica eyed them-bits of mushrooms-and made a face. He could tolerate eating those in his rice mix, but he certainly didn’t like them enough to eat alone. He shook his head and Kuroro made a face.
“I should just ban mushrooms from the camp,” he grumbled.
Kurapica let out an amused snort. “They’re easy to get,” he pointed out, “and some people like them.”
Kuroro made a face. “Barbarians,” he commented.
That made Kurapica laugh despite himself. “Yeah, I’m not entirely fond of them,” he admitted, “but I’ll eat them if I have no other choice or if it’s a pain to pull them all out of a cooked dish, like now.”
“Barbarian,” Kuroro commented again.
Kurapica smiled and shook his head with a small huff. “I’ve been demoted from forest sprite to a barbarian now,” he teased, and was pleasantly surprised at the grin Kuroro sent him back for the comment.
“A barbarian forest sprite,” the Spider Head said.
This time, Kurapica grinned up at him and reached over to poke Kuroro’s arm with the butt of his fork. “I don’t think someone who named his group after a creepy crawler has much of a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing one’s origins.”
“It was an obvious name to pick, Kuroro commented, immediately looking more subdued.
Kurapica set down his fork and put his plate aside to pick up his travel mug once more. “Show it to me,” he requested softly, making sure that his tone showed that it wasn’t a demand and Kuroro was free to refuse if he decided to. “Your tattoo,” he explained when Kuroro glanced at him. “I’d like to see it.”
Kuroro paused for a moment, regarding Kurapica’s face, then turning his gaze to his half-eaten plate. He took in a careful breath, then slowly let it out. He picked up his plate and set it aside on the tray that still rested on the nightstand, then he got to his feet. He was only wearing the sleeveless leather-looking top, so he unzipped it and pulled it off. Slowly, he turned his left side towards the blond, and there, climbing his ribs on the left side of his chest, was a rather large black spider with too many legs. There was no detail on it, no nuance of any kind, just a large, perfectly large mark in the shape of a spider.
Kurapica reached forward as if about to touch it, but he caught himself and snatched his hand back. He rubbed his fingers together a few times, still itching to slide the tips over that inked skin, the black appearing so much darker for Kuroro’s pale skin. He frowned to himself, confused with his reaction, with how visceral the need to touch was. He wetted his lips and tore his gaze away.
“You said they don’t mark some areas,” he murmured, trying to shake off the strange feeling. He paused for a moment, as Kuroro slipped into his top and zipped up the front. Kurapica dragged his gaze back to meet Kuroro’s. The older man was staring at him with a strange expression, caught between surprised and something a little darker that Kurapica couldn’t name. “Who are they? You wouldn’t answer me the first time.”
“Show me you don’t have a tattoo,” Kuroro said, his tone deceptively light. He slipped his hands into his pant pockets. “Show me that you’re not from one of their facilities. I’ll answer you if you do this.”
“You also said you’d help me if I stripped,” Kurapica reminded him. “Is that offer still standing? I’ve gone on that raid party. If I show you I bear no tattoo, you promised to help.”
“I will,” Kuroro confirmed with a nod.
Kurapica hesitated longer than Kuroro had. He wasn’t an absolute prude, but he wasn’t entirely a fan of showing skin to people he didn’t know. Or barely knew, in this case. Eventually, he made up his mind. “I’ll have to go and wash up anyway,” he told Kuroro. “So I’m going to take off my t-shirt and my jeans here.”
Kuroro nodded and sat back down. He took the plate from Kurapica when the blond handed it over to avoid knocking it off the bed, then set it down next to his own and turned his attention back on him. Kurapica wetted his lips and grabbed his shirt, pulling it off effortlessly. It took him another few seconds to get the will to take off his pants. He undid them, a little nervous, then got to his feet and pushed them down. He toed off his shoes and his socks as best he could, then stepped out of of the pile of clothing to stand, semi-naked, before the Spider Head. Opening his arms, he slowly turned on himself.
“No tattoo,” Kuroro confirmed.
“I’ve been telling you,” Kurapica huffed, leaning down to gather his clothes. He stood, clutching the bundle in front of him like an armour.
“I wasn’t going to take your word for it,” Kuroro told him, as if it hadn’t been perfectly clear already. “I’m glad you weren’t lying.”
“I hate liars,” Kurapica said. “I’m going to clean up. If you’re done eating, can you get me some clean clothes to change into?”
“Certainly,” Kuroro agreed easily. “Are you going to give me the keys or should I break into your apartment?”
Kurapica pursed his lips. “You’re horrible, you know that?” he told him, fishing awkwardly through his pockets to find his stolen keyset. He chucked it lightly and Kuroro easily caught it. Kurapica pointed at him. “I’ll have more questions when I’m presentable again and you’d better not be that evasive when you come back.”
Kuroro arched an eyebrow. “I’ll answer what I’m comfortable answering,” he told him. “I don’t know that much about you either.”
Kurapica huffed, then shrugged. “Fair enough,” he allowed. “I’m going now.”
He backed away towards the bathroom, only turning away when he was hidden in the tiny hallway that led to the bathroom. He shut the door firmly and stripped the rest of the way, leaving his clothes in a pile by the door and listened as Kuroro left the pawn shop. He took his time washing at the sink, giving the Spider Head plenty of time to get to the Tower, go through his drawers and come back. It was a bit awkward to think that someone was going to go through his things, but it didn’t bother him as much as it should have. Kuroro had provided most of his clothes, afterall.
He heard the older man return and walk close to the door. There was a light knock, then, “I’m leaving the clothes here. Would you like me to wait outside of the shop?”
“No, I’m just about done,” Kurapica said. “Just go back to where you were sitting earlier, it’s fine.”
He listened as Kuroro’s footsteps retreated, then wrapped a towel around himself and opened the bathroom door to retrieve the clothes. He should have expected it, but the sight of the dark ensemble had him huff in amusement more than annoyance. Of course, Kuroro would have gone for black underwear and black skinny jeans. At least he’d gone for a dark navy shirt instead of making it all black. He quickly dressed, then fished his shoes out from underneath his laundry. He stepped into them and left the bathroom, heading back to the bed they’d been settled on.
He sat on the exact same spot he’d been earlier and picked up his mug like there had been no interruption. He was glad to find the liquid inside was still warm, and took a few sips as Kuroro regarded him calmly. His gaze was nearly unnerving, though Kurapica wasn’t sure why he always felt so out of sort around the man.
“You had more questions,” the Spider Head prompted after a few minutes had ticked by silently.
“I’ve already asked one,” Kurapica reminded him. “I asked who they referred to.”
Kuroro picked up his travel mug from the nightstand and took a sip, and Kurapica had the distinct impression that he was stalling as he collected his thoughts. Kuroro took another sip before setting it back down, then started fishing out more pieces of mushrooms from his cooling plate, pushing them aside in a little pile by the edge of the dish.
“I don’t know, exactly,” he said after a moment. His gaze flicked up to meet Kurapica’s, then slid away again. “I’m not sure when or why we ended up with the Spider tattoo. For all I know, I could have been marked as an infant.”
Kurapica digested that for a moment, turning it over in his mind for a moment. He frowned, pushing his food around on his plate, until he finally decided he wasn’t going to eat more and he handed it over for Kuroro to put back on the tray. He picked up his mug and sipped at the coffee, trying to make sense of this new (and partial) information.
“So,” he said, drawing out the syllable, “you and the other Spiders all happen to have tattoos you don’t remember getting, and all of you also happen to be completely immune to the bacteria that just about wiped out the human race from the face of the earth, and you also emit this trai-”
He cut himself off, realizing that he’d nearly let slip something that was a little too close to home. Glancing up from his mug, he realized that Kuroro’s dark gaze was fixed on him with an intensity that nearly took his breath away. He wetted his lips nervously and tried to look away, but found he couldn’t tear his gaze away. He swallowed, confused for a moment as to the reason for his unwillingness to look away. His heart seemed to be tripping over itself, and he had to rub his palms on the knees of his trousers.
Now was a very, very bad time to remember the man’s attractiveness, but the thought still flashed in his mind, along with the memory of a cold, metal tip pressed against the back of his neck.
“We emit… what, exactly?” Kuroro asked after a moment, and the spell was broken.
Kurapica could breathe again, but he was disoriented and confused. He needed to back off, needed to clear his mind and think rationally about all of this. He closed his eyes and forced himself to turn his head.
“You’ve told me more than you probably intended about your circumstances,” he said slowly, reminding himself, “it should only be fair that I tell you a little about me, too.”
“Is this the part where you told me that you are actually a forest spirit of some kind?” Kuroro asked, and Kurapica turned to glance at him just in time to catch a slight quirk of lips that may have been an aborted smile.
The blond let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Possibly,” he admitted, “although I’m fairly sure that I’m mostly human. But when I do this-”
He turned to face the Spider Head and triggered his Scarlet Eyes, lifting his gaze until it met Kuroro’s once more. The man sucked in a sharp breath and leaned in, one hand reaching up to Kurapica’s face, but stopping short with his fingers just a breath away. His eyes grew darker, the weight of his gaze heavier and Kurapica found himself leaning forward, until Kuroro’s fingertips slid over the skin of his cheek. The blond found himself shivering and struck by an urge to move even closer, to touch and to be touched. It was sudden and overwhelming, and absolutely terrifying. He closed his eyes and got to his feet, turning away and crossing his arms in front of him, hugging his chest and willing himself back under control.
There was a moment of tense silence, then Kuroro asked, “When you do that…?”
His voice sounded a little husky and Kurapica shuddered again and held himself tighter.
“When I do that,” he said, then forwent most of the truth to finish, “I can see an echo you leave behind you, like a trail. If you were to leave this room and lock me in, I could still follow behind you, even a week or two from now.”
Kuroro didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched between them. Kurapica didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to ask what Kuroro was thinking, and so he walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside to look outside. There wasn’t much to see, and no one walked past to give him something to focus on. He waited, growing more and more anxious as time seemed to slow to a crawl.
“Is this just for the Spiders?” Kuroro asked, finally. “Do you see it with, shall we say, normal humans?”
“I don’t see it for normal humans, no,” Kurapica said. He finally turned around, letting the curtain fall back into place. “Just you-the Spiders that is-and my… family.”
Kuroro regarded him quietly for a minute, then asked, “And who were your family?”
Kurapica opened his mouth, then closed it. He frowned, shifting from one foot to the other, then shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “No more questions.”
Beta-reader: unbeta'ed
Chapter title: still untitled
Chapter 06
untitled
Kurapica woke up; that was the first surprise.
He couldn’t say that it was a bad sort of surprise, but it was one nonetheless. He was lying on a narrow bed, the room bathed in shadows, but just light enough to be able to see. He lifted his head and recognized the quarantine area, the heavy drapes on the windows a dead giveaway. He could see some sunlight try to peer around the edges of the curtains, but he couldn’t tell what time of day it was, only that it was daylight.
Carefully, he pushed himself into a seated position and looked around him. Kuroro had gone, having somehow managed to slip out of the room without Kurapica noticing anything. That alone was more than a little worrisome; Kurapica wouldn’t normally have slept through someone moving from behind him like this. He touched the mattress next to him and it still felt a little warm, but he couldn’t tell if it was because he’d moved around in his sleep, or if Kuroro had been lying next to him until quite recently.
He got to his feet and walked to one of the windows, pushing the curtain aside to look out onto the street, trying to determine the time of day. The sun was pretty high in the sky, so it had to be sometime close to noon. The emotions he’d gone through must have exhausted his body, because he remembered it being afternoon when Kuroro had dragged him back to the base. He must have slept close to twenty hours. He hoped that it wasn’t due to the bite.
He glanced at his bandaged hand, noticing that it had slipped a little during his sleep. Leaning his hand down against the windowsill, he used his other hand to tug gently at the knot, trying to make it come loose so he could have a look at the skin underneath. It took some doing, but he eventually managed to undo the knot, and he gently unwrapped his hand, hissing softly as air hit his abused skin. As expected, there was the sharp imprint of teeth on either side of the edge of his palm-dark, nearly black, with a nasty-looking, deep bruise in the middle. It looked pretty horrible.
He felt himself, however; that was the second surprise.
He didn’t feel lost inside, felt completely in control of his own movements, and didn’t hunger for anything overly morbid. Against all expectations, he had both survived the bite and not turned rabid. Turning his hand this way and that, he frowned to himself, but was distracted from his thoughts as he heard slow, careful footsteps out in the atrium, heading towards the pawn shop. The sound stopped by the door, then came keys jiggling and finally one of them sliding into the lock and turning.
Kurapica opened and closed his hand a few times as turned to face the door fully. He watched it open slowly, which is why he spotted Kuroro nearly dropping a tray and some travel mugs as he tried to get his hand from the knob without spilling anything. Kurapica studied him with narrowed eyes, not going over to help, despite the obvious struggle to manage a large tray, two travel mugs, a set of keys and a heavy door with only two hands. Kuroro managed to somehow keep everything under control and walk into the room without dropping anything, when he spotted Kurapica and let the door clang shut behind him.
“Kurapica,” he greeted. “How’re you feeling?”
He shoved the keys into a pocket and transferred the tray to his newly freed hand, which allowed him to better hold the mugs against his chest with his other arm. He set the food down on the nightstand closest to the door, then grabbed one of the travel mugs he’d wedged into the crook of his elbow.
“I thought you’d like coffee,” he added, when Kurapica simply crossed his arms and took a step back from him. “You seemed to be sleeping fairly deeply, so I only stepped out for a minute to get you some breakfast.”
Kurapica hesitated a moment, then he pursed his lips and extended a hand to accept the beverage from Kuroro, twisting the part of the cap that opened the holes that would allow him to drink. He took a sip and was further annoyed to realize that he had put just the same amount of creamer Kurapica had used himself. Or perhaps annoyed wasn’t the right word. He wasn’t sure how he felt about all of this anymore. Kuroro still set him on edge and yet….
Yet, he’d held him as Kurapica panicked, promised not to let him become his worst nightmare. He could nearly feel the body warmth against his back even now, like a phantom caress, trying to soothe him when he wanted to stay on his guards.
“I have a shitload of questions to ask you,” he all but growled, pointing at Kuroro with the hand holding the mug, “and I don’t want any of those slippery non-answers this time.”
Kuroro arched his eyebrows and had an odd smile, but he sat on the bed closest to him and took a sip of his own mug. He made an oddly delicate wave with his hand. “Ask away,” he said pleasantly, and his calm made Kurapica grit his teeth in frustration. He’d had enough of this man acting like he owned the world and was unimpressed by anything he found in it.
Kurapica leaned his back against the window behind him, trying to erase the memory of Kuroro’s warmth. The cool glass helped somewhat, but he still felt slightly unhinged, as if sitting on a chair where all the legs were different heights. He didn’t trust the man to give a straight answer, but he had to try, at the very least.
He watched Kuroro for a few moments, running over everything he’d experienced, heard and learned in the past few weeks. Without even asking the man, a few things were already clicking into place.
He’d been scratched, the thing had drawn blood and he’d been fine.
He’d been bitten, skin broken and everything, and he was fine.
Click.
He took another sip of the warm liquid to steady himself. “So,” he began, then slid the tip of his tongue forward to wet his lower lip, before continuing, “this bacteria that made everyone sick-is immunity possible?”
Kuroro’s smile pulled a little higher on the right side, giving him a lopsided semi-smile that almost looked smug. “Yes.”
Of course. That made a lot of sense. Kurapica had never ever heard of anyone being immune to it before, not in the years he’d travelled before finding his way back to his village, not from anyone he’d travelled with back then, not from any news source when there were still such things as reporters. But that didn’t mean that immunity was entirely out of the reach of possibilities.
So, Kurapica was immune. All of this time feeling deathly afraid of something which could, it seemed, never happen to him in the first place. He was fine, he was safe, he could focus on fighting the things without ever needing to fear becoming one of them. His chances of survival had just increased to near certainty. The relief nearly took him off his feet, but he took another sip of coffee to cover it.
He was immune and….
“Only those who were scratched, but did not become infected.”
“I think you would be much more useful to this group as one of the raiding parties.”
“You’ll be perfectly fine.”
“What have you to fear?”
“It would be ridiculous to avoid the plague, only to be killed by a simple infection from an untreated wound.”
Click.
“You knew I was immune,” Kurapica continued. “That’s why you’ve been so concerned with me, when people in the camp kept swearing up and down you never bother with anyone outside of your Spiders. You knew I was immune to the bacteria that destroyed everything.”
“I didn’t know-” Kuroro began.
“Do not lie to me,” Kurapica hissed at him, stepping away from the wall to stare down at the man sitting before him.
“I did not know,” the Spider Head said again, the smile falling from his lips, “but I suspected.”
Kurapica settled back again and some of the tension left his body as he digested that slowly, taking a few sips of the delicious brew as he turned Kuroro’s words over in his head. He himself had never even suspected that such a thing was even remotely possible, before this day, and the thought that anyone would consider it an option made him a little wary. How had Kuroro even known that it was a possibility? How had he decided, with just the few faint lines that were all that remained of Kurapica’s scratches, that the Kuruta might be somehow completely protected from the virulent infection? Unless….
“You’ve met some before-people who were immune to the disease entirely.”
“Only a very few,” Kuroro agreed. “It seems to be extremely rare, so I couldn’t just assume that you were based on the few healed scratches you had when you came here. But I knew it was a strong possibility. The disease is extremely virulent, and I was fairly sure someone who did not have natural immunity would have turned, even with only a few light wounds like the ones you had.”
There were so many things that Kuroro was saying and yet not saying with this sentence, Kurapica huffed with irritation. He had to stop reacting to the older man, had to focus on the lines of inquiries that would get somewhere.
“A very few,” he echoed. “How many?”
Kuroro met his gaze in a very serious, solemn gaze that made Kurapica want to hide, or shiver, or at the very least look away. He didn’t say anything, didn’t answer the question, and if Kurapica had to hazard a guess as to his thinking, he would say that the man was trying to will him to understand, to figure it all out on his own.
“Do you have a Spider tattoo?”
“I would not expect that from anyone but a Spider.”
“I would, and whomever of my Spiders feel like having a bit of sport.”
Click.
“The Spiders,” Kurapica began slowly. He noticed Kuroro’s face shutting down, his expression growing carefully blank, even as his gaze grew heavier. This wasn’t the blank stare of someone trying to protect themself, however, but the gaze of a man trying not to give anything away while still hoping for his interlocutor to understand more than he was saying. The dark eyes made Kurapica wet his lips and resist the urge to cross his arms before him, as they made him feel cold, made him feel warm, made him feel too many things at once.
He took another sip of coffee to compose himself, trying to will his emotions under control. It was probably a side effect of thinking he was going to die and then ending up very much alive, it wasn’t anything to concern himself with, not at present. He just had to keep calm, to keep himself focused on the conversation at hand.
Because, he realized, he was absolutely right, and this had everything to do with the group of people Kuroro had surrounded himself with. “The Spiders are all immune. That’s why people asked me if I had a tattoo-you asked me the same thing and-”
He blinked, gasping in shock, nearly dropping his travel mug with the strength of the sudden realization that hit him like a freight train.
“I mean to verify that you don’t have a tattoo. If you do not, then I will help you. You may keep your underwear. They do not mark such personal areas.”
“They?”
“I am unwilling to divulge more at the moment.”
Click.
“Who are you?” Kurapica asked, his voice awed and horrified all at once. “The Spiders-your people…. Just-who the fuck are you?”
“If I find out, I’ll let you know.”
Click.
“Tell me,” Kurapica asked, his throat suddenly so tight, he nearly choked on the words. “Tell me who you are, what you are.”
Kuroro sighed, deep and slow. “We’re the Spiders,” he began, then he looked down at his own, mostly ignored mug and brought it up as if he were to take a sip, but then he lowered it without bringing it all the way to his mouth.
“Please don’t play games,” Kurapica demanded, begged, he wasn’t even sure. “This is important. I need to know, Kuroro. Who are you? Is Kuroro even your name?”
There was a long, drawn out pause, where Kuroro lifted his head to regard the high ceiling as if it held the answers to all of Kurapica’s questions. He turned the mug within the circle of his hands, around and around and around like a carousel. Yet for someone who exhibited signs of mental discomfort, his expression was utterly blank, showing absolutely nothing of his inner thoughts.
“I chose the name,” he said at length. “I didn’t have one of my own.”
“Who doesn’t have a name?” Kurapica asked, puzzled by this straightforward answer than somehow managed to derail his line of questioning somewhat. “Didn’t your parents give you one?”
Kuroro lowered his gaze to meet with the blond’s. “I don’t know,” he answered, still seeming entirely truthful, “I don’t remember them. Do you remember yours?”
“Of course,” Kurapica said, trying to go for a light scoff but failing when he realized that perhaps his assumptions about anyone’s childhood were ill-placed here. He cleared his throat. “I left home when I was twelve. I remember my parents.”
Kuroro nodded slowly as if that was the answer that he had expected. “From what I’ve read, that seems to be the norm,” he said slowly.
Kurapica took a hesitant step forward, then another, and finally came to sit at the foot of the bed, leaving over a metre of distance between them. He looked down to the travel mug in his hand for a minute or so, then took a sip. He was a bit at a loss with how to deal with Kuroro’s admission, and even more unsure about how to return to his previous line of inquiry. For one thing, Kuroro’s lack of knowledge about his parentage made the blond question his earlier conclusions about the Spiders.
“Are all the Spiders like you?” he asked at length. “Do some of them remember parents, family?”
“I’ve never asked,” Kuroro said, then ran a hand through his hair. He’d gelled it back the previous day but it now looked all askew. Kurapica had to take a sip of coffee to keep himself from placing it back so Kuroro didn’t look so rumpled. The man didn’t even seem to notice, but put his hand back around his mug. “My guess is they’re like me.”
Kurapica nodded and sipped at his coffee, mulling over this information. After a moment, Kuroro gestured vaguely at the tray he’d brought. On it, Kurapica could see two plates, filled with berries, slices of bread, some of which were toasted, some not, a sort of scramble that looked like a mix of rice, vegetables and beans and a small bowl of what looked like jam.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Kuroro asked him.
Kurapica was indeed starving, but he couldn’t tell if this was just a case of the other man trying to avoid more questioning, in which case, he should perhaps hold off. He knew that he was resilient enough not to suffer from the lack of nutriment, but he also knew that sharing a meal with the Spider Head could help forge a stronger alliance between them and perhaps Kuroro would be more inclined to answer his questions.
In the end, he inclined his head and reached towards Kuroro, then waited until the man put a plate in his hand. He set it down on his knees and accepted the fork that Kuroro handed him. He started with the rice. The first bite went down nicely, and his stomach seemed to really wake up once it realized that it was being fed. For a few minutes, he was more concerned with the food than with the myriads of questions running around his head.
He noticed that Kuroro only ate the raw bread, so he handed him his slices and stole the pieces of toast in return. That earned him an amused half-smile from the Spider Head, who also pushed bits towards the side of his dish. Kurapica eyed them-bits of mushrooms-and made a face. He could tolerate eating those in his rice mix, but he certainly didn’t like them enough to eat alone. He shook his head and Kuroro made a face.
“I should just ban mushrooms from the camp,” he grumbled.
Kurapica let out an amused snort. “They’re easy to get,” he pointed out, “and some people like them.”
Kuroro made a face. “Barbarians,” he commented.
That made Kurapica laugh despite himself. “Yeah, I’m not entirely fond of them,” he admitted, “but I’ll eat them if I have no other choice or if it’s a pain to pull them all out of a cooked dish, like now.”
“Barbarian,” Kuroro commented again.
Kurapica smiled and shook his head with a small huff. “I’ve been demoted from forest sprite to a barbarian now,” he teased, and was pleasantly surprised at the grin Kuroro sent him back for the comment.
“A barbarian forest sprite,” the Spider Head said.
This time, Kurapica grinned up at him and reached over to poke Kuroro’s arm with the butt of his fork. “I don’t think someone who named his group after a creepy crawler has much of a leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing one’s origins.”
“It was an obvious name to pick, Kuroro commented, immediately looking more subdued.
Kurapica set down his fork and put his plate aside to pick up his travel mug once more. “Show it to me,” he requested softly, making sure that his tone showed that it wasn’t a demand and Kuroro was free to refuse if he decided to. “Your tattoo,” he explained when Kuroro glanced at him. “I’d like to see it.”
Kuroro paused for a moment, regarding Kurapica’s face, then turning his gaze to his half-eaten plate. He took in a careful breath, then slowly let it out. He picked up his plate and set it aside on the tray that still rested on the nightstand, then he got to his feet. He was only wearing the sleeveless leather-looking top, so he unzipped it and pulled it off. Slowly, he turned his left side towards the blond, and there, climbing his ribs on the left side of his chest, was a rather large black spider with too many legs. There was no detail on it, no nuance of any kind, just a large, perfectly large mark in the shape of a spider.
Kurapica reached forward as if about to touch it, but he caught himself and snatched his hand back. He rubbed his fingers together a few times, still itching to slide the tips over that inked skin, the black appearing so much darker for Kuroro’s pale skin. He frowned to himself, confused with his reaction, with how visceral the need to touch was. He wetted his lips and tore his gaze away.
“You said they don’t mark some areas,” he murmured, trying to shake off the strange feeling. He paused for a moment, as Kuroro slipped into his top and zipped up the front. Kurapica dragged his gaze back to meet Kuroro’s. The older man was staring at him with a strange expression, caught between surprised and something a little darker that Kurapica couldn’t name. “Who are they? You wouldn’t answer me the first time.”
“Show me you don’t have a tattoo,” Kuroro said, his tone deceptively light. He slipped his hands into his pant pockets. “Show me that you’re not from one of their facilities. I’ll answer you if you do this.”
“You also said you’d help me if I stripped,” Kurapica reminded him. “Is that offer still standing? I’ve gone on that raid party. If I show you I bear no tattoo, you promised to help.”
“I will,” Kuroro confirmed with a nod.
Kurapica hesitated longer than Kuroro had. He wasn’t an absolute prude, but he wasn’t entirely a fan of showing skin to people he didn’t know. Or barely knew, in this case. Eventually, he made up his mind. “I’ll have to go and wash up anyway,” he told Kuroro. “So I’m going to take off my t-shirt and my jeans here.”
Kuroro nodded and sat back down. He took the plate from Kurapica when the blond handed it over to avoid knocking it off the bed, then set it down next to his own and turned his attention back on him. Kurapica wetted his lips and grabbed his shirt, pulling it off effortlessly. It took him another few seconds to get the will to take off his pants. He undid them, a little nervous, then got to his feet and pushed them down. He toed off his shoes and his socks as best he could, then stepped out of of the pile of clothing to stand, semi-naked, before the Spider Head. Opening his arms, he slowly turned on himself.
“No tattoo,” Kuroro confirmed.
“I’ve been telling you,” Kurapica huffed, leaning down to gather his clothes. He stood, clutching the bundle in front of him like an armour.
“I wasn’t going to take your word for it,” Kuroro told him, as if it hadn’t been perfectly clear already. “I’m glad you weren’t lying.”
“I hate liars,” Kurapica said. “I’m going to clean up. If you’re done eating, can you get me some clean clothes to change into?”
“Certainly,” Kuroro agreed easily. “Are you going to give me the keys or should I break into your apartment?”
Kurapica pursed his lips. “You’re horrible, you know that?” he told him, fishing awkwardly through his pockets to find his stolen keyset. He chucked it lightly and Kuroro easily caught it. Kurapica pointed at him. “I’ll have more questions when I’m presentable again and you’d better not be that evasive when you come back.”
Kuroro arched an eyebrow. “I’ll answer what I’m comfortable answering,” he told him. “I don’t know that much about you either.”
Kurapica huffed, then shrugged. “Fair enough,” he allowed. “I’m going now.”
He backed away towards the bathroom, only turning away when he was hidden in the tiny hallway that led to the bathroom. He shut the door firmly and stripped the rest of the way, leaving his clothes in a pile by the door and listened as Kuroro left the pawn shop. He took his time washing at the sink, giving the Spider Head plenty of time to get to the Tower, go through his drawers and come back. It was a bit awkward to think that someone was going to go through his things, but it didn’t bother him as much as it should have. Kuroro had provided most of his clothes, afterall.
He heard the older man return and walk close to the door. There was a light knock, then, “I’m leaving the clothes here. Would you like me to wait outside of the shop?”
“No, I’m just about done,” Kurapica said. “Just go back to where you were sitting earlier, it’s fine.”
He listened as Kuroro’s footsteps retreated, then wrapped a towel around himself and opened the bathroom door to retrieve the clothes. He should have expected it, but the sight of the dark ensemble had him huff in amusement more than annoyance. Of course, Kuroro would have gone for black underwear and black skinny jeans. At least he’d gone for a dark navy shirt instead of making it all black. He quickly dressed, then fished his shoes out from underneath his laundry. He stepped into them and left the bathroom, heading back to the bed they’d been settled on.
He sat on the exact same spot he’d been earlier and picked up his mug like there had been no interruption. He was glad to find the liquid inside was still warm, and took a few sips as Kuroro regarded him calmly. His gaze was nearly unnerving, though Kurapica wasn’t sure why he always felt so out of sort around the man.
“You had more questions,” the Spider Head prompted after a few minutes had ticked by silently.
“I’ve already asked one,” Kurapica reminded him. “I asked who they referred to.”
Kuroro picked up his travel mug from the nightstand and took a sip, and Kurapica had the distinct impression that he was stalling as he collected his thoughts. Kuroro took another sip before setting it back down, then started fishing out more pieces of mushrooms from his cooling plate, pushing them aside in a little pile by the edge of the dish.
“I don’t know, exactly,” he said after a moment. His gaze flicked up to meet Kurapica’s, then slid away again. “I’m not sure when or why we ended up with the Spider tattoo. For all I know, I could have been marked as an infant.”
Kurapica digested that for a moment, turning it over in his mind for a moment. He frowned, pushing his food around on his plate, until he finally decided he wasn’t going to eat more and he handed it over for Kuroro to put back on the tray. He picked up his mug and sipped at the coffee, trying to make sense of this new (and partial) information.
“So,” he said, drawing out the syllable, “you and the other Spiders all happen to have tattoos you don’t remember getting, and all of you also happen to be completely immune to the bacteria that just about wiped out the human race from the face of the earth, and you also emit this trai-”
He cut himself off, realizing that he’d nearly let slip something that was a little too close to home. Glancing up from his mug, he realized that Kuroro’s dark gaze was fixed on him with an intensity that nearly took his breath away. He wetted his lips nervously and tried to look away, but found he couldn’t tear his gaze away. He swallowed, confused for a moment as to the reason for his unwillingness to look away. His heart seemed to be tripping over itself, and he had to rub his palms on the knees of his trousers.
Now was a very, very bad time to remember the man’s attractiveness, but the thought still flashed in his mind, along with the memory of a cold, metal tip pressed against the back of his neck.
“We emit… what, exactly?” Kuroro asked after a moment, and the spell was broken.
Kurapica could breathe again, but he was disoriented and confused. He needed to back off, needed to clear his mind and think rationally about all of this. He closed his eyes and forced himself to turn his head.
“You’ve told me more than you probably intended about your circumstances,” he said slowly, reminding himself, “it should only be fair that I tell you a little about me, too.”
“Is this the part where you told me that you are actually a forest spirit of some kind?” Kuroro asked, and Kurapica turned to glance at him just in time to catch a slight quirk of lips that may have been an aborted smile.
The blond let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Possibly,” he admitted, “although I’m fairly sure that I’m mostly human. But when I do this-”
He turned to face the Spider Head and triggered his Scarlet Eyes, lifting his gaze until it met Kuroro’s once more. The man sucked in a sharp breath and leaned in, one hand reaching up to Kurapica’s face, but stopping short with his fingers just a breath away. His eyes grew darker, the weight of his gaze heavier and Kurapica found himself leaning forward, until Kuroro’s fingertips slid over the skin of his cheek. The blond found himself shivering and struck by an urge to move even closer, to touch and to be touched. It was sudden and overwhelming, and absolutely terrifying. He closed his eyes and got to his feet, turning away and crossing his arms in front of him, hugging his chest and willing himself back under control.
There was a moment of tense silence, then Kuroro asked, “When you do that…?”
His voice sounded a little husky and Kurapica shuddered again and held himself tighter.
“When I do that,” he said, then forwent most of the truth to finish, “I can see an echo you leave behind you, like a trail. If you were to leave this room and lock me in, I could still follow behind you, even a week or two from now.”
Kuroro didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched between them. Kurapica didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to ask what Kuroro was thinking, and so he walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside to look outside. There wasn’t much to see, and no one walked past to give him something to focus on. He waited, growing more and more anxious as time seemed to slow to a crawl.
“Is this just for the Spiders?” Kuroro asked, finally. “Do you see it with, shall we say, normal humans?”
“I don’t see it for normal humans, no,” Kurapica said. He finally turned around, letting the curtain fall back into place. “Just you-the Spiders that is-and my… family.”
Kuroro regarded him quietly for a minute, then asked, “And who were your family?”
Kurapica opened his mouth, then closed it. He frowned, shifting from one foot to the other, then shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “No more questions.”