Author's Notes:
RATING: Mature
CONTENT WARNINGS (in the uncensored AO3 version): Explicit sexual content, non-consent, breeding, somnophilia, implied/referenced character death. Please refrain from reading if these topics are triggering or objectionable to you.
NOTE: To read this story's missing scenes, check the uncensored version on Archive of Our Own (AO3 username: lemonpika).
Chapter 1: Afternoon Delight
Ready for his regularly scheduled afternoon delight, Chrollo walks into the bedroom of the island villa where he and Kurapika are leisurely spending their honeymoon.
A pregnancy test is precariously balanced on top of a pillow.
Chrollo hurries forward and seizes the testing stick. The tiny white oval displays two lines so darkly pink they border on crimson. A positive result!
Within a split-second, he's spun around and rushed out the room. He needs to hunt down his husband so they can celebrate together.
Their team efforts have finally paid off! In nine months or so, Pairo the Second will be arriving on this island!
On the path leading out of the villa, Chrollo mentally runs through all the areas of the deserted island where Kurapika might presumably be frolicking, apparently heedless of the time and his husband's desperate desire to see him.
First stop, of course, will be the beach.
When they last spoke after lunch, Kurapika said he was going for a swim. Chrollo, who was absorbed in a historical novel in his study, reminded Kurapika not to stay out too long under the harsh summer sun. Kurapika merely nodded in response and snapped the study's door shut behind him.
When Kurapika dropped by their bedroom to pick up his towel and sunscreen, did he then leave the testing stick on the pillow as a surprise for his spouse to find in due time?
Chrollo now wishes, more ardently than anything, that he'd gotten up from his reading chair and seen off Kurapika at the villa's front door. In between a smattering of goodbye kisses — Chrollo never could stop smooching his spouse's face and neck and shoulders whenever he got started, as addicted as he was to the salty flavor and sweet scent of that creamy skin — perhaps Kurapika might've blurted out that bombshell of a secret on the doorstep, then they could've celebrated sooner.
Chrollo could've spread the good news to his Troupe through a mass email. He knows his dearest friends in the world would've dropped whatever they were doing to sail to this island and commend him personally on his impressive feat of virility. While he's certain the other Spiders aren't above leaving bastard children in their wake as they trek and trespass and thieve around the globe, none of them to his knowledge have ever attempted to tame a feral, infernal animal into a prim and proper partner and childbearer for any sustained length of time.
Chrollo arrives at the beach. The canvas bag Kurapika usually takes with him is nowhere to be seen.
As Chrollo's slippers pad soundlessly over the sand, he recalls the lengthy, languid nights he's spent on this spotless white expanse.
(There is a deleted scene here.)
Presently, Chrollo casts a glance toward the pier. There are no vessels docked there, but why should there be? The only one that ever visits anymore is the speedboat that's scheduled to come this Sunday to deliver their weekly groceries and other necessities.
This trail is cold, then. No matter. There are others.
The next stop is the waterfalls on the west side of the island.
When Chrollo stands at the foot of the falls and cranes his neck in an attempt to gaze all the way upward, he stumbles back after just a few seconds. It's always dizzying to try to regard the distant crest from so far below.
Kurapika appears to be nowhere close by, but Chrollo already knows he has to venture deeper to either confirm or overturn that presumption.
When they first explored this area — it must've been the very first week they were married — Kurapika vanished for about an hour while Chrollo was busy staring blankly at the subaquatic flora propagating around a whirlpool.
Chrollo had never witnessed anything like those blazing weeds, which looked a bit like bloodstreams undulating underwater, not even within the couple of months he'd spent wandering the Dark Continent in a vain attempt to find himself a new purpose to justify his continued existence after he'd finished avenging Shalnark and Kortopi.
During both bouts of melancholia — the prolonged one during the Black Whale's maiden voyage and the momentary one mere days after his wedding — it was the relieving remembrance of Kurapika that summoned Chrollo back to himself. In the latter instance, Chrollo swam away from the whirlpool that threatened to swallow him into its depths and started to hunt for Kurapika in the vicinity of the falls.
Eventually, Chrollo found his new husband huddling in a small cave hidden behind the ceaseless torrents of water. Kurapika was wet and shivering in the two-piece bathing suit Chrollo had made him wear that day. At the sight of his spouse peering into the mouth of the cave, Kurapika began crying at once, just like a stranded child reunited with their parent after being abandoned in a crowded place. Chrollo tried to shush these panicked sobs with whispered assurances — I'm here and I swear I'll take care of you and I won't ever leave you. But Kurapika wouldn't stop.
(There is a deleted scene here.)
Chrollo rouses himself now from this rose-tinted recollection, which is only one of the countless magical moments he's shared with Kurapika since shunning the world and relocating to this island.
Chrollo takes a deep breath before starting to scale the rock face. In no time at all, he succeeds in clambering into the cave behind the falls.
He's already anticipating the long-delayed second session, especially now that his husband will be all aglow with their baby in his belly, but there's nobody awaiting his discovery inside the cave.
Chrollo dejectedly follows the path of the river leading from the waterfalls. Sure, he's never known Kurapika to go for a dip in the island's various rivers and streams, but he supposes it's possible his spouse would want a change from the beach or the falls.
While settling into a routine theoretically suits their new life as islanders, Kurapika isn't quite the creature of habit Chrollo is. His husband's unpredictability, while usually a source of fascination for Chrollo, can sometimes be a pain in the ass. That's certainly what's happening right now.
Chrollo sighs as the crystalline river stretches ahead, seemingly infinitely, without a swimmer in sight.
His frustrations aren't solely rooted in the thwarted expectations. More than anything, Chrollo is yearning to embrace his beloved from behind. Kiss his delicate neck. Stroke the soft swell of his stomach. Rile him up by suggesting any number of ridiculous names in his mental rolodex, even though at the end of the day their son will be christened Pairo. Sarasa if it's a girl, but that's a backup at best. Chrollo has long envisioned his firstborn as a boy called Pairo. It's just a feeling he's harbored ever since he met the twelve-year-old namesake.
Now, at the riverside, Chrollo's strides slow down as he happens to glance left, where there's a copse of abnormally tall and thick trees. He's only ever come across this particular species of sequoias in Uga Forest, located on the southern border of Meteor City.
He and Kurapika played hide-and-seek in this thicket once. Whenever they played that game, it was always Kurapika who was running away and scurrying into shadowy places to lie in wait. Chrollo, on the other hand, was always giving chase.
That particular day, as Chrollo was hunting for his husband, a shadow swaying on the grass made his heart stutter then stop, rooted his feet to the spot. For a single moment that seemed to last an eternity, he wondered what unspeakable horrors might greet his gaze once he tipped back his head.
When, eventually, Chrollo was able to force himself to stare up at the sky, he realized that the shape dangling from the branch overhead and casting a shifting shadow on the ground was not a knotted garbage bag that he dreaded to open but simply the spouse for whom he'd been searching this entire time.
Unable to maintain his grip on the branch any longer, Kurapika let go and landed gracefully on the grass beside Chrollo. There was the ghost of a smile on Kurapika's face, something Chrollo rarely saw outside of photographs from before their marriage.
Before Kurapika could sprint out of his reach and go into hiding once more, Chrollo seized his slight body and pinned it against the trunk of the nearest tree.
Here was Kurapika in Chrollo's arms. Alive and well, not curled up in black plastic with his limbs arranged in strange, crooked angles.
(There is a deleted scene here.)
What mattered to Chrollo was that there would be no sinister messages nailed to the foreheads of those he loved, no black ink bleeding gray in the rain — the cursed words imprinted for eternity on his brain while escaping everyone else's comprehension. No more of any of that. Those twisted things were relics of the past now, the stuff of night terrors — bound to dissolve once Chrollo awoke, rolled over in bed, and clung to Kurapika for comfort.
Chrollo would never leave Kurapika to face the evils and the elements of the world all by his lonesome, and Kurapika would never run to a place where Chrollo could never find him or reach him.
At least, theoretically, that's how it should be. Kurapika has many admirable qualities in Chrollo's eyes, but he can never be canonized as the patron saint of doing what he ought.
Chrollo keeps walking. And walking. And walking. He winds up walking the whole circumference of the island.
The longer Chrollo searches without any clues of Kurapika's possible location, the more his stomach twists into agonizing knots. All he wants — all he needs — is the sight of Kurapika's eyes meeting his own. The reasons his husband chose to play a one-sided game of hide-and-seek today of all days will be irrelevant. All will be forgiven — the torment of this interminable afternoon instantly forgotten — once Chrollo encircles Kurapika in his arms and never lets go again.
The sun is beginning to sink beneath the horizon. In its downward trajectory, it paints the sky a vibrant scarlet. Chrollo is so far away from being in a space to admire the rare brilliance of this sunset. He swallows back what feels like a stone coursing down his gullet as the color reminds him of the relics he keeps at home in the basement.
The last time Kurapika's eyes flashed this fiery shade — Chrollo recalls it perfectly. He'll probably keep the picture of that moment in his mind's eye until the day he dies.
Chrollo whirls in the direction of the villa. Perhaps he should've started his search there, but he really can't recall being cognizant of the usual sounds of his husband coming home after exploring the island on his own.
Was Chrollo buried behind his historical novels at that time? Was he too preoccupied with poring over the blueprints Franklin had sent him for the purpose of identifying any weak spots in a consultory capacity in lieu of his actual physical presence at the Troupe's next planned heists? What the hell was he doing — paying attention to anything and anyone but the solitary human being to whom his heart shall eternally be bound?
Chrollo has finally returned to the villa. Perhaps Kurapika has come home in the course of the search outside. This is what Chrollo repeats to himself like a mantra as he combs through every room, every corner, and every crevice of their matrimonial residence.
He heads toward the dining room on the ground floor. Leaning against the doorframe, he visually scans the cavernous space. After he's done here, the basement is all that's left to visit. A part of him has purposely been putting off checking downstairs, but he pushes that part away as best as he can. He can't succumb to despair just yet.
The floor tiles are as spotless here in the dining room as they are everywhere else within the villa. Kurapika often liked to vacuum just as Chrollo was starting his semiregular conference calls with his Troupe.
Kurapika must be down in the basement. Vacuuming. Where else would he be? What else would he be doing?
If the answers elude Chrollo even there, he'll have to unlock Bandit's Secret in the specially-constructed drawer in his study so that he can start dowsing. That is, if the dowsing chain will even work. There's always the slightest chance the five chains will have vanished from the pages.
Chrollo has to summon the last vestiges of his courage before he shoves off the doorframe. He's about to depart from the dining room when a glint from the corner farthest to him catches his attention.
He approaches and gets down on one knee to pick up the minuscule source of reflected light. He exhales once he verifies it's not what he initially suspects — the diamond from Kurapika's engagement ring, dislodged from its platinum base and carelessly cast away. Instead, it's a tiny sliver of crystal, possibly from a saucer or a goblet.
Though Chrollo was cautious upon retrieving the mysterious shiny object, he now deliberately grinds it between his thumb and forefinger. This callousness draws drops of blood, which is just what he wants, given the realization that has stricken him like a bolt of lightning. He knows the specific circumstances — how and when, exactly, this crystal shard ended up here on the floor.
It was three weeks ago, at an especially tense dinner punctuated by breaking glass.