Author's Notes:
PAIRING: Leorio/Kurapika (Leopika).
RATING: Mature. Eventual sexual content.
This is a sequel to Echoes of home, two tiers below.
This story features art by applecidrdonut on Twitter. To view the images, check out the version posted on Archive of Our Own (AO3 username: lemonpika).
Chapter 2: Citrus fireworks behind his eyelids
Drenched in the neons of a club at midnight, Leorio is perched on a barstool by the counter. Deaf to the shuffle and shouting of strangers, to synthesizers and shakers from the sound system.
He gazes down at his glass of golden liquor. Studying its sheen as if hoping it holds the key to all of life's insurmountable problems. Well, one problem in particular. His most precious person. Someone he has lost, is still losing, will lose in a heartbeat. With his lover's clock as broken as it is — hands spinning wild, without regard for wasted seconds, minutes, hours, days — it's getting harder to tell where they both stand.
Or is it? His beloved is standing — or has stood, or will stand very soon — on the precipice. Leorio can only watch, frozen. Arms locked in place, feet entrenched in sinking sand. Unable to prevent this disaster from unfolding, even in slow motion.
Enough. He's sulked too much for a night out in the club. He guzzles back his whiskey in earnest, but halfway through the glass, his eyes begin to leak. The traitors. Yet he continues drinking, seeking to disguise the surplus of emotions with the burn of liquor down his throat.
Glass emptied now, he initiates eye contact with the bartender. "Can I get another? Whiskey on the rocks."
Leorio makes sure to tip her generously. More likely than not, if things go south, he'll be monopolizing this barstool for the rest of the night. Might even be best buds with the bartender by sunrise.
A vibration against his thigh. Leorio extracts his phone from his pocket and glances at the screen. He shouldn't accept this call, should he? What's the point now?
Rejecting the phone call, Leorio swivels around on his seat. He faces away from the counter and toward the rest of the club's premises.
Cutting through the crowd on the dance floor, with more grace than Leorio would have thought possible, is his target for the night. He can't explain how he knows. He just does. Perhaps it's the woman's sense of purpose. Her single-minded regard for the bar and for the pleasant fog it promises, heedless of the heads she turns to arrive at this desired destination.
She comes to a stop beside Leorio. Even in heeled boots, she's significantly shorter. Auburn hair, windswept. Leorio would love to run his hand through that hair. Or yank on it. If she's down to get freaky tonight, that is.
She's staring at the bottles behind the counter. Fingers grasping at air, as if hoping by this motion alone to conjure a glass to quench her thirst.
Surveying the minuscule space between her forefinger and thumb, Leorio hazards a guess. "You're craving a cocktail, aren't you?"
The woman's eyes — the impenetrable black of midnight — meet Leorio's. "What?"
He repeats his sentence. Louder, to be audible above the tumult around them. He then adds, "I guessed by the way you're moving your hand. You look like you're imagining holding a cocktail glass."
Instead of confirming or denying this, the woman smacks her palms against the counter. To end Leorio's speculative exercise, it seems. "What do I need to do to get some service around here?"
"I can help you with that," Leorio offers.
Leaning against the counter, Leorio attempts to summon the bartender with the power of his stare. Miraculously, this strategy works. His sizable tip earlier may have helped.
The bartender relinquishes the glassware she's polishing and trots toward him. She is, however, sidetracked by Leorio's companion. Flashing all her pearly whites at the new arrival, the bartender inquires, "What can I get you, gorgeous?"
"A dirty martini, please." The woman glances at Leorio's glass, which is just about empty again. "And a refill for this fine gentleman beside me."
"Right away, Miss." The bartender then faces Leorio, and her sultry tone turns icy now. "A whiskey on the rocks, wasn't it?"
Before Leorio can get a word out, he has a fresh drink in hand. The woman shells out the jenny, and if Leorio's eyes haven't deceived him, her tip amount is twice his own. This ingratiates her even more with the already enamored bartender. The latter lingers, but ultimately retreats at the urging of other patrons.
The woman sips on her martini. "Mm. That hits the spot."
Her coaster, ringed with moisture from her cocktail glass, is glossy white and marked with black type. It's not a coaster, after all, but a business card left by the bartender. "Mitzi Ricole," Leorio reads aloud. "That's the bartender's name. You gonna call her?"
"Just be glad she didn't spit into your glass. She didn't seem happy that I'd singled you out."
Leorio glances up from the card. "You didn't have to pay for my drink, you know. I wanted to —"
She cuts his sentence short. "I don't have to do anything you want or expect me to do. I play by my own rules."
He pauses briefly to think of a witty retort, then smirks. "You're saying that now, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that by the end of the night, you'll be right where I want you. And enjoying every second of it too."
"Every second, huh? Are you foreshadowing how long you can last in the sack?"
He waggles his eyebrows. "Leave with me and you'll find out. It might not be the best night of your life, but you'll have a funny story to share with your friends, at the very least."
"Interesting seduction tactics. It's been a hot minute since you've been out and about like this, hasn't it?"
"No way," Leorio lies. "I hit a new club every night. And I always ask the hottest chick around to dance. So you wanna dance?"
The woman deigns to survey the dance floor. Her eyes narrow at the sight of bodies jammed from wall to wall. Bucking into each other in a crude pantomime of bedtime wildness. Sweat shimmering on separate skins.
"Not right now," she decides. "I'd rather transfer to a quieter side of the club, if such an area exists."
"I know just the place."
They down their drinks, then brave the chaos of passage through the dance floor. Not wanting to be separated from her, Leorio presses his palm against the small of her back. Rather than pulling away, she leans in — her hip grazing against Leorio's leg as she swerves from strangers who veer into her path for a glimpse.
Encouraged by her ready proximity, Leorio lets his hand skim over the smoothness of her back to settle on the sharpness of her shoulder. With his arm draped over her frame, he's sending an unambiguous message to everyone in their way. Mine. Don't you dare touch.
They reach the balcony. There's a smattering of people wandering about here, bubbling with laughter and blowing smoke rings toward each other's red-rimmed eyes.
Leaning against the balustrade, Leorio lights up a cigarette, then offers another to the woman.
Leorio bends over, letting the tips of their tobacco touch. She breathes in, so her cigarette catches — amber, aflame — and his heart stutters in that old manner. A flutter that he's long since relegated to rose-tinted fragments of memory.
For a beat too long, their faces remain dizzyingly close.
"Thanks," the woman murmurs. "There's no stimulant like smoke from another's pocket."
The warmth of her breath on his lips. His tongue twists instantly into a knot. Rather than trying to talk, he whirls around to rest his arms against the balcony rail. Pretends to be enraptured by the cityscape alone. Nothing else.
This sprawling, smog-filled metropolis. Side by side, they gaze into this abyss of sorts. The cubes of light from domino-row buildings, far from offsetting the oppressive dark, only play up the precarity of it all.
With her cigarette, the woman points toward the silver band on Leorio's ring finger. "That came from the shop in a pair, I presume."
Leorio eases the ring from his finger. Slips it into his pocket.
She flicks her ash toward his shirt. "Isn't it too late to hide the evidence? I saw what I saw."
"This ring doesn't mean anything. I got into the habit of wearing it whenever I went out on my own. You know, just to let people know. . . ." He trails off.
She finishes the sentence for him. "That you're already spoken for."
"But I'm not. It's complicated."
"Is it?"
He fumbles with his words now. "It's over. That relationship. That life. It was over a long time ago. I kept waiting at home. Waiting for someone who always had one foot out the door. I would've given everything. But I woke up one day, and home was already a strange place around me. I was left behind. And even alone, I kept hoping for the outcome to change. Praying for an alternate universe, with everything shiny and new. But there's no point anymore. It's over, and I can do fuck all about it."
"That doesn't sound complicated, then. You've already decided on what you're going to do, haven't you?"
With a grimace, Leorio crushes out his cigarette on a nearby ashtray. He spins around, ready to reenter the commotion of clubgoers alone.
Before he can escape, the woman clutches his arm. "Hey, don't you know how it feels to be left behind? So why are you doing that to me now?"
"You ask too many questions. I'm gonna go. I wanna dance."
"Dance with whom?"
Leorio shrugs. "Anyone. It doesn't matter."
She releases his arm. "Then go. Search the club as you like. Find someone pretty to warm your bed tonight. But you know something? I'm your best bet. Because I get you. I understand how you feel."
"No, you don't."
"I do. I'm in a similar bind."
He turns around. Quietly watching her.
"Like you, I've longed for other endings, while knowing deep down that there can only be one." Her voice is trembling, ever so slightly. "I pretend the future doesn't scare me, but it does. It does."
Before Leorio realizes it, he's blinking fast. There's something about that recognition. That rush. For the first time in a long time, he sees the fear he's always fighting echoed in another's eyes. Suddenly, he wishes he could hug her. But instead, he clears his throat and says, "You got a fellow back home, then?"
She sighs. "It's complicated."
"I hear you."
"I love him more than anything in the world. But sometimes love just isn't enough, you know?"
"Yeah, I know." Tentatively, Leorio reaches for her hand. "Should we go together, then? Forget all our woes on the dance floor?"
"I vote that we get some shots first."
"You're on."
Back by the bar, Leorio pays for the tequila. Toasting to a fresh start, they both knock back their shot glasses.
"Whoa." Leorio wags his head as if he's a newly bathed dog. "I felt that."
The woman only beams. Still on the mellow side of inebriation, no doubt. "Should we get another?"
"Gonna pass. Had too many whiskeys earlier."
"Another!" she trills, waving her glass.
After Mitzi the bartender claps down a third shot, Leorio urges his companion to make use of the salt and lime this time.
"Lick the salt, shoot the shot, suck the lime. That's the best way to take your tequila."
So the woman does. Leorio tries his darndest to pretend that the sight of her pink tongue — darting out to scrape at the salt on her hand — doesn't do things to him, but it does. The floodgates of filthy imagery are gaping fully open.
Fingers interlinked so they don't lose one another, they now make their way toward the dance floor. These other clubgoers, they're leaping along to neurotic pops of music. Jerking their hips from side to side. Wiggling their asses. Punching the air. Combing their hands through sweat-soaked hair.
Acutely aware of how he towers over everyone nearby, Leorio's first few dance steps are stiff. His companion, however, with nary a trace of self-consciousness, sways to the pulsing song. Sensual. Fluid. At absurd odds with the spasmic motions of those around them.
Emboldened by the liquor in his system, Leorio falls into step with the beauty before him. Neither converses now — encircled by this noise, they'd have to scream to be heard — but their eyes are locked steady.
Flashing neon lights. Melodic deep house basslines. Elbows jostling him at every side. Amidst this sensory overload, he only has her penetrating gaze to anchor him in place. He reaches out, wrapping his large hands around her narrow waist. Pulls her close. Close enough that she can feel how much he needs her. Tumescent against her thigh.
Leorio ducks his head. Brushes his lips against her hair. Lowers himself further, all to beg for a taste of her. But she's already there — she's everywhere — bridging the distance between them with a kiss. Slipping her pink tongue inside his mouth.
She tastes of nicotine. Salt. Agave extract. Citrus fireworks behind his eyelids, which have fluttered closed.
She may have grounded him before, but now he's drifting freely over the dance floor. Suspended. Wrenched back through the years. Feeling twenty-one again, kissing his first love for the first time.
With the anthems overhead blending together uninterrupted, Leorio loses track of the minutes. All he wants to do is kiss her forever. He feels rather than hears the flitter of a question against his lips. Something about a hotel.
Not without difficulty, Leorio pries his mouth from hers. Holding her hand again, he tugs her along toward the glowing exit sign. Beneath the green arrow, the woman repeats her proposition about booking a room together.
"We can do better than that," Leorio says. "How about my house?"
She raises an eyebrow. "Your house? Is that okay? Do you even live alone?"
"As I've said, it's complicated."
"You actually want to get in trouble, don't you?"
"Guess I don't care. Not anymore."