Title: The Question of Legacy
Author: Celeste
Universe: Hunter x Hunter
Feedback: Just HALF-CRAZED night-before-midterm-writing.
Rating: PG-13 (yaoi themes)
Pairing: Leorio/Kurapika
Word Count: 3,336
Time: Uh…no idea.
Summary: Revenge complete, Kurapika's still got some other responsibilities to take care of…right? Leorio is an idiot.
Dedication: Vinnie, for totally inspiring me to write GAY. XD Love you, Vinnie!
A/N: God I should be doing homework or something considering how busy this weekend is going to be. But yeah, I always seem to be pretty damn productive writing wise when I have school obligations to take care of… though for some reason my brain wouldn't let me work on one of the like, 3 drabbles I still owe for that lj thing, and isn't it a bastard for hitting me with a new plot bunny independent of fic I owe? sigh I guess the trick to getting me to do something is trying to get me to do something else first O.o Such is my way.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them. Woe is me. ;;
Distribution: Just lemme know.

Kurapika was beginning to wonder about Leorio.

Not that he didn't most of the time anyway, but he felt that he was begging to wonder about the older man more so than usual these days, because now that he had the time to think on it, it just seemed that Leorio was stranger than he'd first imagined when it came right down to it.

And he wasn't talking about little things like the fact that sometimes the other hunter wore mismatched socks or his shirts inside out when he wasn't paying attention, or even how he tended to drink too much some nights and ended up mistaking the Kurata for a very pretty girl.

Kurapika, in all the time they had known each other, had gotten use to those little quirks of his friend's.

But lately, there was something unstable about it these days, that friendship-but-something-more that they had had for so long. It seemed rather fragile all of a sudden, and Leorio was driving him crazy with it because it seemed everyday the taller man was threatening to tip it one way or another without the blonde's opinion thrown in anywhere in the mix.

Today it seemed, that Leorio was tipping in favor of alienation.

The blonde watched him calmly as they sat in the restaurant having an early dinner together, a cozy little tea-café that served light sandwiches or soups and salad. Leorio was downing cold beer like it was free (it was not by the way and Kurapika wasn't picking up the tab alone again this time, especially when the idiot was hell-bent on getting inebriated so early in the evening).

But for the most part, the blonde could deal with Leorio's little quirks, drinking being one of them. That didn't bother Kurapika so much.

Leorio was trying very hard to score their waitress's phone number.

Which was disgusting in that she was trying to make a living and obviously had no interest in him as it was, but tacked onto the fact that Kurapika was absolutely certain the big idiot was head-over-heels in love with him made it rather insulting as well.

Kurapika sipped at his tea and glowered slightly at Leorio whenever he made a particularly obnoxious comment, waving their poor waitress over and trying very hard to flirt with her in front of everyone. Mentally, Kurapika made a note to make an apology for his friend's behavior before they left.

Leorio was very, very bad at flirting with women. It might have been because, throughout the idiot's very obvious, rather prolonged amorous friendship with Kurapika, he'd lost touch with exactly how to charm the female population, but the Kurata was more than certain it had to do with the fact that no woman in her right mind could deal with Leorio's boorishness and thus his only option for a long time had been the blonde.

And Kurapika had been fine with that.

Except all of a sudden, rather nipping at the heels of his completed revenge, Leorio was trying his damn hardest to piss Kurapika off into never wanting to see him again.

And it might have worked too, if Kurapika wasn't absolutely certain that he was head-over-heels in love with the big idiot back.

So instead, on the waitress's dreaded fourth return to their table at Leorio's behest, he very coolly interrupted whatever inane thing the brunette was going to say about her eyes this time and asked her very kindly not to bring his loud-mouthed friend any more beer no matter what sort of hell he raised about it. Then, he apologized for Leorio's rudeness and asked for the bill.

Grateful, she shot him a big smile and darted off before Leorio could sort out something to say in response to Kurapika's calm denunciation of his actions.

"Oi…Kurapika, you're totally crampin' my style, bastard," the older man grumped, adjusting his tie sullenly and looking at his empty beer mug like it was the most heinous crime on earth to allow it to remain like that.

Kurapika calmly sipped his tea and pushed his plate forward, half-eaten meal left to its own devices now that he had effectively lost his appetite. "You are being an ass," the blonde told him very matter-of-factly.

Leorio had the gall to look wounded at the simple statement. "I…c'mon, man, I was just trying to score a date, you know?" he chuckled, though it sounded even more humorless than his loud, clearly half-hearted attempts to charm the girl that had been stuck with serving them. "Can't let all the pretty girls like that just get away, right?"

The check came then, brought to the table by a sour-looking busboy who had obviously been sent in the waitress's stead. Leorio made a show of looking disappointed at the fact, and spitefully, Kurapika pushed the bill towards him. "I'm going back to the hotel," he said plainly, tone leaving no room for argument. "Please take care of the check."

Leorio sputtered. "Oi…that's not…" He sighed as Kurapika walked out without another word.

Outside alone, Kurapika told himself that after having avenged his clan, after years and years of hard work recovering the red eyes of Kurata, he had no excuse to kill anymore.

Even if Leorio was behaving like a complete jackass.

Feeling a bit self-pitying at the fact that the culmination of his hard work hadn't resulted in the open proclamation of love and companionship he'd been hoping for, he decided not to head back to the room like he'd said he was going to, but turned down a street he knew would lead him to the market instead, hoping that the bustling square would draw away some of his pointless melancholy and distract him with more pleasant things.

He was finished. Revenge complete, and though he knew its end would not leave him with any sense of joy at having finished his self-appointed task, he had at least hoped that it would mean his life would be his own again, free to live out as he pleased with no other obligations to the ghosts of kinsmen past.

It was what he'd thought Leorio had been waiting for as well.

So when he'd come to the other man, when he'd smiled and let him know that he was done, that it was finished, he'd expected a shared sort of joy, maybe some sort of ultimate climax to take place, a sort of fitting, happy end to all the waiting and the side-stepping and the tender looks that had never been allowed to be more than simple, tender looks.

Maybe, after all those years of not being allowed to have it, Kurapika had wanted to be embraced by someone he loved.

But Leorio had gotten a funny look on his face when he'd heard, though he had been cheerful, if a little bit louder than normal, patting Kurapika heartily on the back and congratulating him like he'd finished a final boss in a video game instead of everything that most of his life had been completely, single-mindedly, painfully dedicated to.

Leorio really was an idiot.

The ensuing few weeks had proved that with his indecisiveness. Kurapika could feel the hungry, anxious looks when his back was turned, the torn gazes at night in their separate beds and a certain sense of nervousness that just hung in the air between them, one that definitely hadn't been there before.

At the same time, Leorio made passes at random women, chummed around with Kurapika in an almost forced super-masculine fashion, and drank like he'd magically find gold at the bottom of his beer bottles if he kept it up heartily enough.

It all really didn't make sense, and even Kurapika, who could usually at least sniff out the motives behind Leorio's stupidity, was at a loss as to what was going on.

But resolved not to think on it for at least the rest of the day, Kurapika strolled into the bustling market square in hopes of finding adequate diversion for a few hours.

There was only so much stupidity one could take in a day, after all.

He should have learned a long time ago that when one wanted to avoid stupidity, going into a large group of people was the last thing one should do.

Several hours later and he'd been hit on by three drunk sailors who'd thought he was a girl in the early dark of early evening, had been yelled at by a fishwife for looking so moody when he'd stopped at her stall that he drove other customers away, and had had a child tug on his clothes before asking rather precociously 'why oniisan had a dress on'.

It was not a dress.

Feeling rather grumpy after having such an unproductive, frustrating day (this was the last time he made the effort to suggest some vacation time for he and Leorio), he took the stairs up to the tenth floor of the building they were staying in because he didn't trust himself in a confined space with anyone right now and didn't want to have to explain to the authorities why he'd perpetrated random acts of violence on whoever would have been unfortunate enough to have to ride the car with him.

Upon reaching the right floor, he dug in his pocket for the key to the double room he was sharing with Leorio, looking forward to doing or saying nothing other than "I'm going to sleep" before doing exactly that.

Really, he experienced less stress when he had actual work and thus, something to focus on that was obligatory and not in any way personal.

Pushing the door to the room open, he expected to find it empty, but the lights were on and Leorio was sitting pensively at the edge of his bed, staring at the now-open doorway.

"You're back!" the taller man exclaimed, looking for a moment, unguardedly relieved at Kurapika's safe return.

Still in too foul a mood to allocate the other hunter any points for that, Kurapika calmly closed the door behind him. "Of course I'm back. My things are all still here aren't they?"

Leorio frowned and relaxed back onto the mattress. "Ah, yeah… I uh, I just thought you'd be here when I got back, like you said you'd be, 's all. And when you weren't…well…"

He hated himself a little bit for asking, but did anyway. "Were you concerned?"

Sensing that Kurapika was still angry with him, Leorio chose his words very carefully. Or as carefully as someone like him was capable of. "Of course I was. You were gone for like, five hours!" He pouted marginally. "I ran all the way from the restaurant up here 'cuz I thought you were pissed at me or something." Sighing, the older hunter ran a hand through his hair. "You were probably just chatting it up with the bikini babes at the pier, huh?" he asked, adding a rather unsavory wink to the last statement.

Kurapika was highly tempted to completely ignore him and head straight to bed in a silent huff on that comment, but sighed tiredly instead, closing the door behind him.

"We need to talk," the blonde stated, tone leaving no room for argument.

He was definitely too tired to deal with this sort of thing any more. And the temptation to just kill Leorio was steadily growing with each passing moment. Which wasn't a feeling that was supposed to go hand-in-hand with the person you loved.

"Uh talk? Sure buddy… about what?"

Kurapika sat down on his own bed, facing Leorio who was sitting on his. The little alleyway between their parallel mattresses felt oceanic. "You are confusing me, and on purpose," Kurapika began with a frown. "It's driving me crazy."

Leorio frowned back. "Huh? Whaddya mean I'm confusing you?"

"You're being very capricious in the signals you're sending," Kurapika admonished, crossing his arms. "One minute I think you care about me and the next you're obviously trying your hardest to make me think otherwise. It's warring on my nerves almost more than all the years spent collecting the eyes of my dead relatives and I think in a couple of days I'll reach my capacity and actually start to dislike you very much."

Leorio looked away. "Aw, don't be like that," he started, sounding rather forced. "You know you're important to me. You're my best friend, so don't say stuff like that okay? No matter what happens, you'n me will always be buds, right?"

Kurapika was tired of his obstinate need to be evasive. "I don't want to be your friend."

Stunned into forgetting whatever ridiculous act he was putting on, the brunette swung back around, staring at the Kurata with what must have been overwhelming fear. It almost made the younger hunter feel guilty.

Almost.

"Wait… you don't…"

Kurapika shook his head and said very plainly, "And you are an idiot for thinking that I would be satisfied with something like 'just friends' after all the time we've spent dancing around something far more significant."

The expected reaction of, "Meh?" was all Leorio could respond with.

"Leorio," Kurapika began gently, "I am finished with the promise I made years ago. You were the first person I came to…the first one I told. What do you think that means?"

"I…uh…well… that…we're…good…friends, right?"

The blonde rubbed at his temples to try and dissipate the pressure that was building up there. "Leorio… I understand very well how I feel for you, and I thought that I understood how you felt for me, but apparently there is something going on here that I fail to see." His voice softened considerably. "If you don't care for me in that way, please just say it so that I can know for sure."

Leorio rubbed at the back of his neck uncomfortably, obviously contemplating whether to tell the truth or some elaborate lie to fend off the Kurata's inquisition.

Kurapika wanted very much to strangle him. "Leorio…"

On the shorter hunter's tone, Leorio reflexively scooted back on the edge of his seat, glancing warily at the blonde because he expected to see red eyes looking back at him any second now. "Geh…okay, okay….geez, gimme a sec will you, this is kinda hard!" he whined, suddenly forthcoming when it came to self-preservation issues.

For some reason, that made Kurapika kind of want to strangle him even more.

"Well, you see… I mean… you're the last one, right?"

The Kurata blinked. "Excuse me?"

"The last one. Of your clan, or whatever."

Kurapika nodded, slightly dumbfounded at the fact that Leorio's explanation looked a lot like a rehashing of things everyone knew already.

"Well… don't you have to you know, fix that now?"

The blonde blinked. Fix that?

"Fix what?"

Leorio gestured vaguely with a hand. "You know! I thought you'd have to do that too, wouldn't you? I mean…if you're the last one, aren't you supposed to, well, fix that?"

Kurapika blinked again, hating that Leorio could sometimes make him feel very, very stupid. "What?"

A telltale flush blossomed on the taller man's face and he looked purposefully away, fiddling distractedly with his tie. "Well, I know I'm the doctor and everything, but don't tell me I gotta explain that to ya…"

Kurapika glared, because that sort of talk was not helpful right now.

"Look, all I'm saying is, as the only one of your clan left…shouldn't you, you know, find a girl or something and work on…brats?" The older man made a face. "Cuz that way… you know, you wouldn't be the last one any more…or something. That's the next step, right? Isn't that always the next step?"

Oh.

Oh.

Kurapika, a little bit stunned (though whether it was surprise at Leorio's strange thoughtfulness or his idiotic way of going about it, he wasn't quite sure), stared back at the cringing brunette

"So I thought you'd wanna you know, find a nice girl or somethin' and then you could set up and start trying to reestablish your clan so that you'd have that whole bloodline thing going again and wouldn't have to worry about your people dying out. And you know, since I'm not…and you're not…well, if we… you couldn't repopulate or anything, and even if we could I don't think I'd be very good with brats so I figured it'd be better if I just you know, let you go do that 'cuz you've always got something you've gotta do for your family and I don't wanna be in the way of something like that, and I'd even convinced myself for a tiny, little while that I wouldn't mind just bein' Uncle Leorio as long as I didn't have to change diapers, but that didn't really last for a long time so then I thought, well, maybe I can find some girl too and then I wouldn't have to think about how you'd be off repopulating and being all responsible and completely forgetting about…"

It was about there that Kurapika had had enough.

The blonde held up an imperious hand, stopping Leorio mid-spiel. He took a deep breath and started speaking very calmly, because he didn't want his voice to shake due to the fact that he now knew Leorio was an even bigger idiot than he'd first thought and in knowing that, he wanted to make what he was about to say very clear to the other man. "Leorio… listen to me very carefully for a moment, all right?"

The brunette nodded.

"First of all, as the lone survivor of the bloodline, even if I were to attempt to…repopulate, as you put it, the gene would be stretched so thin the chances of it being expressed would be rather hopeless and my efforts would thus be sorely wasted. Secondly, I only swore revenge for my family. I'm certain my kinsmen are satisfied with what I have done for them. It would be a little excessive of them to expect more than that from me, don't you think? I'm personally, more than ready to live for myself now that the dirty work is finished with. And as I have no particular interests in girls, your whole theory is moot point."

Leorio, who had been watching him with a sort of half-crazed, incredulous look on his face during his explanation, was otherwise, reaction-less.

Kurapika counted to five.

"Wait, so you're not… I mean… a girl, you're not gonna, you know…"

Patiently, the blonde shook his head. "I am not. I had never planned to."

"Huh." Leorio blinked back at him.

Kurapika counted to five again.

And was rewarded with a, "So this means…that you…and you wouldn't mind… even though I've been…you still…"

Patiently, the blonde nodded. "I do."

"Wow." Leorio stared, dumbfounded.

Kurapika counted to ten this time.

After a moment of stunned disbelief, Leorio, with a funny little expression of awe mixed with what might have been relief, slid off his mattress into the alley between their beds so that he was on the ground, looking up at Kurapika. "Wait…" he started dumbly, reaching forward to touch the blonde's face. "So you…"

Ever patient, Kurapika nodded, cheek brushing against his friend's fingertips. "I do."

Leorio, probably still confused for the most part, but also still awed and relieved (which was what was really important anyway), let himself smile nice and big, looking right into Kurapika's eyes. "Well, okay then. Uh… me too."

The Kurata snorted. "It's about time, you moron."

The moron laughed. "Yeah, sorry for being slow. You know me," he murmured, touching their foreheads together and closing his eyes before taking a deep breath. "So you really ready for this?" he breathed, sounding anticipatory but at the same time, under unnecessarily tight self-restraint. "Like, really, finally, completely, totally ready?"

Kurapika was tempted to roll his eyes, but decided that he was too tired of this idiot-whom-he-loved being strangely evasive with what should have been the obvious next thing to do.

So Kurapika kissed him first.

END