A/N: Inspired by the song "Epilogue" by the Antlers.
Leorio never manages to get used to it.
Sometimes the dreams are vivid, clear and pristine and indistinguishable from reality even when he drags himself up into proper consciousness. Sometimes they're blurred, just color and impressions of anger or tears or affection. And Kurapika is just as variable as the dreams themselves, seething with scarlet eyes or sobbing into hands over his face or on his knees pleading for forgiveness. Sometimes he's in the blue-and-white he wore when they met. Sometimes he's in that tight black disguise and a long silver wig. Sometimes he's in Leorio's clothes, overlarge white button-up shirt barely clinging to his shoulders and looking so fragile that Leorio reaches out to pull him in close.
Sometimes Leorio is cold and distant, self-righteous in his anger and icy hurt. More often he is the one melting, reaching out even as he's spitting furious barbs at the blond, and Kurapika will smile through tears and lean in against his chest, fit his arms around Leorio's waist as Leorio clings to his shoulders and continues to insist that he is angry, he is very angry, punctuating his words with desperate kisses against the other's soft blond hair. Kurapika is warm and alive and there in his arms and Leorio can feel forgiveness welling up in his throat and through his blood even before the bite in his voice has started to fade.
There are bad dreams, too, the more painful end of the spectrum although they come less frequently. Leorio holding Kurapika while the blond bleeds out over his hands from a fight finally too big for him, or Leorio finding Kurapika after the other is gone so he can watch the possibility of reunion die instead of Kurapika himself. Sometimes it's just a call, his phone ringing with the number he's been waiting and waiting for, answering in delight only to hear an unfamiliar voice with news that hits like a shock to the heart.
Very, very occasionally the dreams are formed of memories, the taste of Kurapika's lips or the feel of his skin or the shape of his smile, with more or less relation to a past worn threadbare with reminiscence. Those are always a little blurry, a little bit shadowed by the past-tense that Leorio can't shake even while asleep, but they have the comfort of at least being faintly based on reality.
He always forgets, when he wakes up. He'll blink his eyes open to the darkness of the bedroom, and start a self-deprecating smile, and roll over to reach out for the body next to him. The lack of resistance is always startling, when his arm falls to the mattress instead of touching Kurapika's shoulder, and it's always that that finally pulls him into full consciousness, panic rising higher than resigned recollection for a moment of surprise.
The first time it happens he can't go back to sleep. He ends up sitting awake on the couch, watching the hours of the night go by while he stares at the silent darkness of his phone and waits for a call that never comes. By the fourth time it happens, he is able to stay in bed and wait for the hurt to pass so he can go back to sleep. By the time it's become a regular occurrence, he is able to roll over and let reality flood over him, familiarity enough to offset the worst of the hurt.