Chapter Text
“The next meeting is on Friday, same time. Thank you everyone for being here today.”
Kurapika stood, wincing at the simultaneous grating of fifteen shitty metal chairs across wooden floors. The quiet murmurings of small talk might’ve been worse to listen to, though. It was only his third Narcotics Anonymous meeting, and he’d been lucky enough to avoid getting caught up in anything extracurricular so far. There was only so much of this he could take.
“Don’t wanna stay and chat?”
Leorio grinned down at him. He'd been bringing Kurapika, partly for support, and partly because neither of them thought he'd be able to force himself to come here if he was on his own. And as difficult as he found these meetings at times, they were a help in staying sober. Kurapika was very grateful for his friend.
But he still gave him an unimpressed look—obviously not—and shook his head. Leorio just chuckled and started heading for the door. Yes, Kurapika was grateful for him.
Squinting against the sudden afternoon light, he fished out his cigarettes and lit one with an unsteady breath. Everyone's stories were hard to hear. They hit too close to home; a place he was trying to shield both himself and Leorio from. But he found himself nodding along anyway because yes, exactly.
It was strange in there, how they had all come from different walks of life and ended up on the same paths. And there was at least a comfort, a camaraderie, in knowing that he wasn’t the only one who had hit rock bottom over and over again.
“Do you want me to take you home?” Leorio offered, hands in his jeans.
Kurapika shook his head once more, “I could do with the walk. I need to pick up some stuff from the store anyway.”
Leorio eyed him. He was worried, after watching Kurapika avoid eye contact and restlessly pick at the skin around his nails for the last hour. He had every reason to fret, but Kurapika didn’t want to be babysat.
He sighed, taking a drag from his cigarette. “I’m fine, I promise. I just wanna…” He waved his hand, searching for the right—least suspicious—word, “Decompress a bit.”
Leorio paused for a few seconds longer before relenting, “Alright.”
Kurapika then found himself engulfed in long arms, his face pressed against Leorio’s chest. It took him a moment to reciprocate with an arm around his back, having been caught off-guard.
“I’m so proud of you, dude. You’re doing so well. Remember I’m only a call away, yeah?”
Call me, not him.
Kurapika could read between the lines.
He nodded anyway, “I know. Thank you, Leorio.”
He couldn’t thank him enough, actually. Kurapika had put him through a hell of a time over the last few years. There was no reason the man should still be speaking to him, much less going out of his way to support him like this, but here he was. At his side. As consistent as he had been since they were kids and he felt like he needed to defend Kurapika from snide remarks—to when they were on the cusp of teenagehood and he held his hand at his parents' funerals while he tried not to scream—all the way through the slow but sure downward spiral that had followed.
Kurapika wasn’t sure what he’d done to earn that sort of kindness and understanding. Certainly nothing in this lifetime. He swallowed as he was released from Leorio’s hold.
“Get home safe, yeah? Let me know when you get back.”
Kurapika nodded, clearing his throat. “Yeah, you too.”
Recovery was fucking hard.
Kurapika thumbed the ‘one day’ coin in his pocket as he walked down familiar streets, flipping it over between his fingers. He liked to do that, to keep it at hand. It was bizarre to think he’d earned it two whole weeks ago; that he'd been sober for that long. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he hadn't at least gone out on the weekend. Kurapika smiled a little to himself. He was proud, even if he was struggling with the steps.
The talk of a higher power was a little grating, even with the assurance it didn't necessarily mean God. Just— a force greater than themselves. Kurapika supposed he was well-acquainted with that, considering his entire life had felt like one big divine comedy.
But he wasn't sure how to accept the first step. And that made it hard, knowing there were eleven more to go after that.
We admit we are powerless over our addiction—that our lives have become unmanageable.
Kurapika didn't like that. He wasn’t powerless. His life wasn’t unmanageable. Yes, he’d made more mistakes than he could ever possibly remember, but hadn’t everyone? That didn't mean he was out of control.
Out of control would be— well, he imagined it would be something similar to waking up in the hospital, then needing to be physically restrained and sedated after being told they were keeping you in to get you clean. Off of everything. Because you weren’t going to see your thirties at this rate.
(It had been so, so stupid of him to keep compulsively throwing back pills and washing them down with sips of his "water" bottle throughout the day. He just…hadn't been able to stop himself, until he passed out in the staff bathroom at the restaurant.
Fucking idiot. Kurapika tsked to himself at the memory, even so many days later.)
And maybe out of control would look like bargaining with a nurse—who didn't really seem to care if he lived or died anyway—about getting some opioids because he needed them. For his migraines, sleep, everything, he needed them.
“Yes, that’s what happens when you’re addicted.”
She didn't understand. No one did.
Kurapika wondered how long he could hold onto his I'm fine card—insist the first step wasn't applicable. Especially after everything that happened in the hospital. But it felt too important to him to put down—flip it face up, put it on the table. Stubbornness was a talent of his.
Watching Leorio tear up when he came to visit him, then clutch him like he was going to disappear any second, was the first time he had really, truly wanted to concede, though. Kurapika was wracked with guilt, and fondness, and several other things that had brought him close to tears too. That was when he promised, there and then, that he was going to accept the help and get clean.
It had been a deceptively easy promise to make on day one.
By day three he was ready to throw in the towel; his fever spiking and muscles cramping and head pounding and he had never wanted to get high so fucking badly in his life. It was all he could think about—apart from how unbearably depressed he felt. It was like all of the dopamine had been sucked out of his brain. He'd never felt so catastrophically empty.
He kicked up another fuss with the staff after being denied medication again, which had been somewhat uncontrollable, somewhat for catharsis, and somewhat to get sedated again. They caught on the third time he tried that, and threatened to institutionalise him. Kurapika let his anger and misery boil quietly under his skin from then on.
By day five, when he found himself eyeing his sixth-story window with a little too much interest, he did the second most self-destructive thing he could think of and texted Chrollo back, telling him what ward he was on. He didn't know how Chrollo found out what happened. The man just always seemed to know everything.
Kurapika wasn't sure what he'd been hoping to get out of the visit. A distraction, maybe, or something else he didn't care to think about. He didn't know. Nothing else had mattered to him other than not fucking feeling like that anymore.
Unlike Leorio, Chrollo's eyes didn't water upon seeing him. Kurapika was given an easy smile, as if they were simply meeting at their usual spot, then found himself forced to contort his body to make room for all six-foot of the man next to him on his narrow hospital bed. He had stiffened—then promptly melted into his side at the sound of his quiet voice and familiar scent. Cigarettes, spiced cologne, the undertone of his natural musk. It felt like breathing oxygen for the first time after days of suffocating under pure white sheets, walls, floors, ceilings.
Leorio caught them in his bed like that. Because Kurapika was a mess and couldn't keep track of what month it was, let alone the time that his friend had been coming every day. And once Chrollo had graciously acquiesced and left to avoid a fistfight in the middle of the ward, Leorio laid into him extremely hard.
And amidst his wild ramblings, he made very valid points—things Kurapika would've known himself if he'd been in his right mind. It had taken him until Leorio was driving him home to see sense, but guilt and fondness made him concede once more, and he made another promise: that he'd stay away. Receiving some actual treatments for his migraines (all it took was an inpatient stay to get the Botox injections he'd been begging his doctor for, apparently) was a big help in making that promise, too. Without the pain, there was no need for painkillers, and no slippery slope for him to slide down.
Maybe that had been a naive way to look at it, considering how much he'd continued wanting both the drugs and the slope regardless.
Kurapika huffed to himself, kicking a stone across the pavement. It bounced off a trash can and onto the road, where a car ran it over. He took out another cigarette and lit it as he walked. He needed it, the memory of the hospital making him itchy.
He'd managed to keep both of his promises so far, though, and had only called Chrollo once to tell him not to contact him anymore—that he was committed to sobriety this time. It wasn't the first time they'd had a similar conversation, but it was the first time Kurapika felt like he wasn't lying. And it was the first taste of hope he'd had in years—one that wasn't brought about by a synthetic chemical, at least.
Despite his best efforts, he wasn’t delusional enough to truly believe he could stay sober while continuing to fuck his dealer. Because while they were more than just consumer and provider—they also weren’t.
And it had only been ten days, but god did Kurapika miss him already. He missed the drugs, yes, but more unfortunately he also missed him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the early days; when he was younger, stupider. When he was still living in ignorant bliss and hadn’t yet realised what an asshole Chrollo was. When everything was so fucking exciting and this handsome, clever man with all this power and money at his fingertips was the director of it all.
Kurapika hadn't been able to get enough of it. Nodded along too easily. Eagerly lapped up every single word that came dripping out of Chrollo's mouth and then some. Basked in the attention and the freebies and the pleasure.
But when he stopped nodding along, when it wasn't as fun anymore, when things got serious quick, it didn't matter. 'No' was just a challenge to a man like Chrollo—to see how smoothly and efficiently he could flip it on its head. And that was when Kurapika started to become disillusioned, and got an idea about just who he had crawled into bed with.
…He missed the sex. Jesus Christ, did he miss the sex. One of Chrollo's few redeeming qualities, and it did a lot of heavy lifting for him.
He'd like to think he was more aware now. Wiser, with lived experience, rose-coloured glasses removed. Better at playing Chrollo at his own game. But all it took was the overwhelming need to get high, like clockwork, and he'd fall right back into being that wide-eyed sixteen year old, and do ridiculous things like invite his drug dealer to the hospital where he was detoxing.
Staying as far away as possible was undeniably for the better.
Kurapika was willing to put in the work this time, and actually try. He couldn't keep going the way he was going—clawing his way through survival and leaving a wake of destruction in his path as he did so. He needed to live, instead.
He'd had enough of being miserable for ten lifetimes. It'd be nice to feel normal, for a change.
And even though it had been hard, was still hard, and would continue to be hard—Kurapika thought he was doing an okay job at it so far. Just for today. That was what was written on his coin, what they repeated in every meeting. He ran his thumb over the letters. Just for today, he could be normal. That felt achievable. He could pick up his groceries and go back to his apartment and curl up on the couch with some tea, like he imagined normal people did. He wasn't really sure himself, after all.
He stepped on the butt of his cigarette. That sounded fine. Just for today.
And it was exactly what would've happened, if he'd been paying attention.
It was easy to let his surroundings bleed into nothingness when he was lost in his thoughts, making his way home through muscle memory alone.
If he’d been paying attention, he might’ve noticed the person behind him had been there for several minutes, rounding all the same corners and steadily getting closer.
And he definitely would've seen the way two other men suddenly appeared—one from the other side of the street and one straight ahead of him, moving in formation.
But he was thinking about dark eyes and boyish smiles and veined hands. He was thinking about the coin in his pocket and being normal. He wasn’t paying attention.
“Hey.”
A tap on the shoulder startled him, and he whipped around. A tall, brunette man looked him up and down and tilted his chin at him.
“You know Chrollo?”
Oh, shit.
His stomach dropped. Anxiety immediately set in. No one wanted Chrollo for anything good. Kurapika finally looked around, and saw himself being quickly boxed in by the two other men he'd failed to notice before. Oh, shit. He did his best to keep the panic off his face, out of his voice.
“Who?” He heard the waver, and cursed himself for it.
“Chrollo. Lucilfer.”
Kurapika swallowed. His eyes darted across the street, to the windows of the buildings. There was no one around. It was the middle of the day, how was no one around?
“I…don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry.”
He spun around, and bumped straight into another man, as wide as he was tall. Kurapika's head barely reached his chest. He took a step to the left, and was pushed back by a third, blonde and shorter. Shit shit shit—
“I think you do,” the first man said.
And with that, his arm was grabbed, and he was yanked into the dead-end alleyway they were standing in front of.
He was let go of abruptly, and the carried momentum sent him stumbling to the floor. He watched as his only escape route was blocked off by the giant he had run straight into, and the other men approached him. He was trapped. Fuck. Fuck. His eyes darted left and right. Nothing but brick wall. No way he could possibly defend himself against three men.
“I’ve got a message from Tserriednich.”
Kurapika scrambled, grit scraping the heels of his palms, aiming to get back on his feet as quickly as possible, but the short man was on him faster. He punched him hard in the side, and Kurapika wheezed, falling back to the concrete with a thud.
The blinding pain that bloomed from the hit then spread throughout his torso sent alarm bells ringing in his head. He looked down with slow-dawning horror, and watched as a deep red splotch seeped through the fabric of his jacket, gradually darkening and dyeing the neighbouring fibres.
He hadn't been punched. He'd been stabbed.
The smell of copper hits him first.
Kurapika gasped and put his hand to the wound, ears ringing and heart racing and watched—watched, from somewhere behind himself, because this was impossible, this was another one of his fucked up dreams—as his palm came away glistening red.
Blood, there’s so much blood—
The shock paralysing his body left him wide open for a steel-toed boot to connect with his sternum, knocking the air out of him and leaving him choking on nothing.
He can’t move, his knees locked in place. His feet are lead, weighed down to the floor, and taking even a single step forward is out of the question. He doesn’t want to, anyway—he doesn’t know what he’s going to find.
Kurapika’s lungs seized and he curled in on himself, relying on instinct to protect his internal organs from further damage. His arms came up to shield his face, his bloodied hand turning the light strands of his hair red.
The living room has never felt so terrifying.
He was kicked again, and then again—the other man?—until he felt the distinct and sickening feeling of something giving way in his chest as one of his ribs cracked under the assault. His lip split against his teeth as he caught a mouthful of boot. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.
It's all so…quiet. Unmoving. A perfect picture of agony and heartbreak, suspended in time. Capturing the last remnants of his life as he knows it, before someone tore it up and lit it on fire.
It was unending, and then it was over before it began.
Kurapika found himself tensing in anticipation, holding his breath with every scuff of leather against stone. The wait was agonising. The searing in his side didn't compare to the cold feeling of impending doom.
Were they going to kill him?
His mother is so still. They're both so, so still, their skin grey and sunken and ugly. Their eyes are somehow looking both straight through Kurapika and nowhere at all at the same time.
“Tell Chrollo to keep his dirty fucking hands to himself."
The man spat on the ground in front of him, and Kurapika heard them walk away. Counted three sets of footsteps and waited, just to be sure. Then waited some more.
He doesn't need to touch them to know they'll be cold.
The screeching of tires down the street brought some of his senses back online. And with it, the full brunt of pain and sheer fucking panic of realising the danger wasn't over by a long shot.
He looked down. He didn't want to, he really didn't want to, but he looked. He needed to know the severity of the situation, and shit, it wasn't looking fucking good.
There's so much blood.
He did his best to put some pressure over the wound, stem the bleeding. He needed help. He needed to call an ambulance. He couldn't call an ambulance, because they report stabbings to the police, and when did his life get so fucking complicated anyway? Panting, he swallowed down the blood that had gathered in his mouth. He was dizzy. His stomach was warm with the blood seeping out from his side.
There was only one person he could realistically call.
(Call me, not him.)
Kurapika grit his teeth and awkwardly manoeuvred his injured body to reach for his phone, wincing with every laboured breath, and he tugged it out of his jeans with trembling hands. It was so hard to move when his limbs felt more like deadweight than anything meant to be useful to him.
Blood smeared over the screen as he fumbled for the contact. His vision was blurry. His phone felt unreasonably heavy in his hand.
(You promised.)
Chrollo picked up on the second ring.
“Oh? What happened to—“
“They stabbed me,” Kurapika gasped out, consonants catching on his injured lip. Everything came tumbling down at the sound of a familiar voice, the desperation of the situation sinking into his bones. “They fucking— Fuck, oh fuck, Chrollo, there’s so much blood— There’s so much—“
“Where are you.” Chrollo’s voice was deadly, and there was frantic shuffling on the other end of the line, “Kurapika, where the fuck are you?”
“I don’t—“ He groaned as a fresh wave of pain washed over him, “I don’t know, I was- I was walking back from- from the church, shit.”
“Don’t hang up— Shal, Shal!— Don’t hang up, we’ll find you, just keep talking to me, okay?”
If Kurapika hadn’t been on the verge of losing his mind and his consciousness, the panic in Chrollo’s voice would’ve made him smile. Smugness, tinged with a bitter edge of spite.
“Kurapika? Pika, you need to stay awake, keep talking to me baby, come on.”
Stay awake? How could he possibly? He was tired. So, so tired. The sudden calmness that overtook him threatened to pull him under. Somehow, despite never having experienced the feeling before, he knew exactly what it meant. He made some unintelligible noise, his whole body throbbing with every heartbeat, and his throat closed up with the need to cry.
They’re dead.
He should be, too.
Why isn't he dead?
“Don’t let me die, please— I don’t wanna die,” Kurapika begged into the phone, slurred, his mouth rapidly losing the ability to shape words. He found it odd, that he’d say that—it was the first time he’d thought anything like it in years.
“I promise, Pika, you’re gonna be okay— Faster, Fei!— You’re gonna be okay, just stay awake.”
He groaned again, his breath coming shallower.
He sits on the floor for hours. On his knees, watching the bodies get stiffer, desperately holding on to everything he's ever known and loved. He doesn't blink or breathe.
“Pika?”
He swallowed metal and tried to respond. He couldn’t. He tried to close his mouth again. He couldn’t.
He gets dressed and goes to school.
“Kurapika!”
His head hurts.
“Fuck!”