Chapter Text
Down a winding road he sped, but the driver had no eyes. He’d been decapitated at their last stop. Beside them was the ocean lapping at both sides. They were going to fall straight off the bridge when the dream realized that the driver was dead.
Waking up from this felt like a horrible effort. It wasn’t even that he hadn’t slept properly, because Kurapika had. He’d slept like he hadn’t seen night in five months, with dreams of broadleaf forests, sea fog and volcanic landscapes. Even when he was away from home it seemed he still wanted to travel.
Kurapika felt for his eyes, checking if he still had his contacts in. He pressed a finger to his lower lashes and then to his temple as he opened his eyes.
The honeymoon suite.
It felt like waking up in a bouncy castle or in the middle of a field with how strange it all felt. The windows were open, gentle breeze teaming with cicadas and air conditioner noises.
Kurapika listened for anything else. There was nothing to note. It was as if the thief took his leave through the window.
Kurapika jumped out of bed ran for the window, only to find himself tripping over Chrollo’s rib cage and nearly collapsing over him. Kurapika’s shot his hand out to catch the wall so he wouldn’t fall all the way.
“Why do you sleep on the floor? You’re not a dog,” Kurapika hissed.
Chrollo mindfully caught Kurapika’s leg and lifted it back to the ground, not particular about being kicked. He looked curiously up at Kurapika’s Struggle for balance, gently setting the book he was reading down beside him on the carpet and stretching his arms behind his back. “It’s more comfortable for me on the floor,” Chrollo said. “It gives me more time to wake up,” if anything happened, he would have a split second more of shelter.
Kurapika curled back up on the edge of the bed and peered down at Chrollo, his graceful limbs pulled to his chest. “You didn’t expect me to trip on you,” Kurapika said. It wasn’t a question.
“It didn’t hurt,” Chrollo offered.
They stared at each other in silence. Their proximity a conversation in itself.
Kurapika waited to feel the annoyed, incompatible energy he got from being in a room with anybody except perhaps Melody. He waited to feel like he was going to be jumped or spoken to too harshly.
Chrollo however didn’t move a hair. He let his eyelashes brush his cheeks and breathed so quietly Kurapika couldn’t hear it. He had less presence than a bush land hare.
It took Kurapika an inordinate amount of time to realize that Chrollo wasn’t going to move before he did, content to laze until the predator (Kurapika) passed.
“Ridiculous,” Kurapika muttered. He climbed off the bed by the foot instead, “Get dressed, bathe, I need to think.”
Chrollo snorted but obeyed the thinner man.
Kurapika glared at his back until Chrollo began to undress, which was when Kurapika looked away and chose to stare out the open window.
Kurapika willed himself to free his mind from the vestige of his nightmare. Another pressure awaited.
“Why do you call yourselves the spiders?” Kurapika said. They were in the hotel cafeteria. “No matter how obvious it was meant to be, I never got it.”
Chrollo’s laugh echoed inside his cup of green tea. “We catch criminals. How wasn’t that obvious? We’re spiders and our homeland is our web. Criminals are attracted by the chance to work in the ultimate dark web, and while they get comfortable, we … well.”
“That explains the cannibalism,” Kurapika said after a beat.
Chrollo’s eyebrows shot up, “When did we do that?”
“Uvogin. He bit into a man’s skull, before I…”
“He was amazing,” Chrollo said wistfully. “Maybe the best villain actor of all time,” He sounded smitten.
“Actor?” Kurapika pressed.
“Oh,” Chrollo said. Then seemingly out of nowhere he said, “Did you have movies growing up?”
“No.”
“Electricity?”
“We were simple people, agrarian.”
“You must have seen plays,” Chrollo said.
Kurapika shook his head, “Theatre wasn’t encouraged. If we pretended to be something, we did it as children. By adulthood, it was considered lying to pretend to be what you are not. Lying is taboo to the Kurta.”
Chrollo’s eyes twinkled, “Have you seen The Reckoning?”
“Obviously I haven’t.”
Chrollo leaned in, causing Kurapika to scoot backwards. There was no murderous intent but there was something broiling under Chrollo’s aura. Kurapika felt like he’d stepped on a trip wire.
“What?” Kurapika said.
“Oh, nothing.”
“Chrollo.”
“I’m so excited to teach you how to lie.”