Chapter Text
Leorio had no idea why the little blond had plastered himself to Leorio like a baby bird under its mother’s wing. All he could say for sure was that the blond was well and truly, completely, without a doubt drunk.
“I don’t think you need that, kid.”
Leorio gently took the drink that a grinning Pietro had just handed over from the blond’s hand.
“Hey,” the blond protested indignantly as Leorio took a sip. Definitely alcoholic. Much too alcoholic for Leorio’s new companion.
“That’s mine,” the blond said with a very cute pout. He wriggled on Leorio’s lap, trying to reach for the drink. Leorio hastily pushed the drink across the table to an amused Pietro.
“Stop being a bastard,” Leorio told his friend. “Getting him even more drunk isn’t going to help.”
Pietro tapped the glass with the fingers of one hand as he watched the blond settle with his head against Leorio’s shoulder, his soft hair tousled. It was long enough that it could cover his ears.
“Have you gotten his name yet?” Pietro inquired.
“Nope,” Leorio said. “He’s barely talking sense. He mentions work a lot, but whenever I ask him about it, he says he doesn’t want to talk about it.” Leorio shrugged helplessly.
“I haven’t had any luck, either,” Pietro confessed. “Plenty of people have lost drunk, cute blonds but every time I start asking about specifics, well, it’s obvious they’re full of bullshit.”
“I want to dance.”
The blond lifted his face to stare imploringly up at Leorio, making no move to get off his lap.
“I don’t think so, Sunshine. Not after the spectacle you made of yourself earlier.” Leorio’s cheeks heated up at the memory. That spectacle was exactly why he’d snatched the blond off the dance floor. He’d been attracting way too much attention of the unsavoury and predatory kind. Worse still, the blond seemed to have no boundaries or sense of danger at all, eagerly entertaining the attention of anyone who got close enough to him irrespective of gender or manners. After watching a man's hands wander into dubious territory, Leorio had had enough and stepped in. Since then, he and Pietro had been trying to find the blond’s friends, if he’d come with any, but their search so far had been fruitless.
“So, what do we do?” Pietro asked, spreading his hands helplessly. “We don’t know who, if anyone, he came with. We don’t have his address. We don’t even know his name. I’d suggest just leaving him to fend for himself but…” Pietro’s raised eyebrow let Leorio know that the dark-haired man was already aware that the idea would fly about as well as a fat chicken with Leorio.
“You don’t have to deal with this. Go find Layla,” Leorio suggested. “I’ll, I don’t know, take him home, I guess. He’ll sober up tomorrow.”
“You sure?” Pietro asked.
“Yeah. Enjoy your night out,” Leorio said. “We’ll be fine. Right, Sunshine?”
“I think you’re mean. You won’t let me dance,” the blond said.
Pietro chuckled as he rose reluctantly from his chair. “Call if you run into any problems,” he said. “I’ll probably stay with Layla tonight, so…”
“have fun,” Leorio said in reply.
“Just one sec.” Grinning, Pietro raised his phone to snap a photo of Leorio and the blond. Leorio’s half-amused, half-indignant protest followed Pietro into the crowd.
Once Pietro had left, Leorio performed a brisk search of the blond’s pockets, hoping to find a reclamation slip for his coat. Surely the blond hadn’t walked the streets in that crop top?
But Leorio’s search turned up nothing, not even a mobile phone. Sighing, he said, “I guess you’re coming home with me, then. I hope you aren’t a serial killer or anything—or your boyfriend or girlfriend isn’t. Come on, up you get.”
Leorio’s effort to get the blond to stand on his own two feet proved futile. Thin arms clung to him, one sliding around his neck.
“You’re comfy,” the blond mumbled into Leorio’s neck.
“Oh, come on!” Leorio exclaimed. “Do you seriously expect me to carry you?”
Since the blond made no move to find his own feet, that seemed to be exactly what he expected of Leorio.
“I can tell you’re high maintenance,” Leorio grumbled.
“I’m not high. I don’t do drugs,” the blond said defensively. He gave a half-hearted kick, probably hoping to hit Leorio, but he was nowhere close.
“No, you’re just so drunk you can’t even understand what I’m saying,” Leorio said with a resigned sigh.
“You’re mean. And comfy,” the blond replied.
“And you’re much too cuddly for your own good. You’re lucky I’m not an asshole who’d take advantage of that,” Leorio replied.
He carried the blond to the foyer and picked up his own coat. Instead of putting it on himself, he set the blond down on a bench and wrapped it around him instead. With the blond shielded from the stares of the other club patrons, Leorio carried him out into the parking lot, where he retrieved his keys from his coat pocket. The blond dozed against his shoulder as Leorio unlocked his car.
He met some resistance as he tried to put the blond in the passenger seat. The blond tried to hook his arms around Leorio’s neck, unwilling to let him go.
“Look, you can sleep here. Just settle down,” Leorio complained, pulling the seat belt over the blond’s hips and buckling it.
The blond looked as if Leorio were the worst person in the world, as if he’d just committed a mortal betrayal. Tears practically welled in his big grey eyes.
“Oh, shit, please don’t cry,” Leorio pleaded. “I can’t handle that.”
The blond sniffled. Leorio pulled his coat more firmly around the blond. “Go to sleep,” he repeated, patting the blond’s hair in a soothing manner. “Please,” he added.
Thankfully, the blond did settle sulkily into the seat. Leorio headed around to the driver’s side. By the time he got into the car, his passenger had drifted off again, his head lulling against the head rest.
Leorio drove back to the apartment he shared with Pietro. He put the blond to bed in his own room and spent the night in his roommates’ since he knew that Pietro wouldn’t be coming home that night.
Leorio expected his guest to be out of sorts when he woke up the next morning. Waking up in a stranger’s apartment with a severe hangover was never going to be a good start to the day. What he didn’t expect was to wake up with a knife pressed against his throat.
Leorio gaped in confusion. Hard grey eyes stared down at him from a very pale face. The hand holding the knife shook slightly. Leorio swallowed. He tried to smile in what he hoped was a reassuring, calming way.
“Morning,” he said. It was on the tip of his tongue to call the blond ‘Sunshine’ like he had last night, but he luckily reconsidered. The blond did not look as if he’d be at all receptive to the nickname. “Sleep well?” Leorio inquired.
The blond looked taken aback by the question. Leorio hoped that his flippancy hadn’t just cost him his neck, but he really had no better idea of how to handle the situation.
“Who are you? Where am I? Who do you work for?” the blond finally demanded.
“Uh, I’m Leorio. Doctor Leorio Paladiknight,” Leorio said, hoping that the blond might find the news that he was a doctor reassuring. Not that being a doctor was conclusive proof that he was an upstanding, unthreatening member of society who didn’t kidnap and rape cute, drunk blonds. “This is my apartment, and I work for Yorknew General Hospital.”
The blond seemed confused by Leorio’s introduction. “And why, exactly, do I find myself in your apartment, doctor?” he asked.
“Because you got drunk at a club last night and I had to haul you outta there before you ended up in someone else’s apartment, or a cheap motel room, or a dirty alley, or a shallow grave,” Leorio said. “So could you put that knife back in the kitchen drawer, please?”
Reluctantly, the blond removed the knife, which was unquestionably from Leorio’s own kitchen, from Leorio’s throat. Leorio was finally able to sit up and take proper stock of his guest. The blond had raided Leorio’s wardrobe, replacing the crop top and tight pants with one of Leorio’s button-ups and slacks. Leorio couldn’t say that the fact bothered him. The blond looked kind of cute in the oversized clothing, with the sleeves rolled up to keep his hands free.
The blond moved off the bed and to a safe distance as Leorio got up, his posture still wary.
“I went to a club?” he asked uncertainly.
“Yeah, you did,” Leorio agreed.
“And got drunk?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, shit.” The blond's face showed a complicated array of emotions, from horror to embarrassment to slight skepticism, as if he still had some doubt as to Leorio's honesty.
“Yep,” Leorio said sympathetically. He tugged on one of Pietro’s sweatshirts. “I’m guessing you’ve probably got an elephant stomping on your brain right now. There’s some medication in the kitchen cupboard above the sink.”
“I know. I found it,” the blond returned.
“Oookay, Mr Nosy,” Leorio said slowly.
The blond pressed his lips together, looking slightly sheepish but Leorio doubted that he’d apologise. The blond probably thought that he was justified in his snooping.
Maybe he was. Leorio had never gotten so drunk that he’d woken up in a stranger’s apartment before, with no memory of the preceding events. Maybe he’d be just as rattled as the blond if that happened to him. But, really, the knife to the throat was a bit unreasonable.
“Look, I’m going to freshen up,” Leorio said. “Make yourself a coffee or something. I’ll whip something up for breakfast when I’m done, okay?”
The blond eyed him suspiciously. “How do I know you won’t drug me?” he asked.
“You tell me. You’ve been through my stuff, apparently,” Leorio returned snippily.
The blond backed off, giving Leorio a clear path to the door, and indicating a tentative agreement to Leorio’s proposal.
Right. Leorio passed by him, eyeing the knife still in his hand warily. He entered the bathroom and shut the door behind himself with relief.
When he left it, he half expected the blond to have taken the opportunity to flee. However, he found the blond sitting at the kitchen island on a stool, Leorio’s phone in hand. The knife was nowhere to be seen, thankfully.
“Hey, that’s mine,” Leorio protested.
The blond made no objection when Leorio took the phone from him. He winced as he saw the photo on the screen. Pietro had sent him the photo he’d taken last night of the blond zoned out on Leorio’s lap, hair shining in the neon lights of the club.
“I apologise,” the blond said tightly. “It seems that I jumped to conclusions.”
He looked away, cheeks red.
“It’s fine,” Leorio said, patting his shoulder. “There anyone you need to call?”
The blond frowned. “I should call my colleague. I don’t appear to have my phone on me, so she might be concerned.”
“Okay, well, use that.”
Leorio passed his phone back to the blond, who took it, still frowning.
“How do you take your coffee?”
Black,” the blond responded.
Leorio listened to the one-sided phone call as he brewed the coffee. It was short, curt and told him nothing of why the blond had been so defensive upon finding himself in an unfamiliar environment.
When Leorio set the coffee down on the island, the blond said, “You said your name was Leorio, right? Who is Pietro?”
Nosy little bastard.
“My friend and roommate. He isn’t here right now,” Leorio said.
“Oh.” The blond fell silent for a moment as he sipped the hot coffee. Finally, he said, “My name is Kurapika. Thank you for your assistance last night. I apologise if I was any trouble.”
“You were no trouble,” Leorio assured him. “You were… kind of cute, actually. It’s weird. A lot of people get violent when they’re drunk, but you’re the opposite.” He laughed, but Kurapika didn’t seem to share his amusement. His guest stared at Leorio as if he couldn’t believe what had just come out of his mouth.
“Okay, uh, I guess that came out wrong?” Leorio asked, though he had no idea how.
Kurapika huffed, before taking another sip of his coffee. He pressed his fingers to his temple, as if he were just done with the day already and wanted to go back to bed until it was over.
“Breakfast,” Leorio decided. “I said something about breakfast, right?” He turned, mentally going through the contents of his fridge and cupboards.
“Don’t trouble yourself. My colleague will be picking me up soon,” Kurapika said.
“Oh. How did you know the address?” Leorio asked.
“Your phone. Thank you for the coffee, but I should head downstairs to meet her.”
“Uh, okay.”
With reluctance, Leorio watched Kurapika leave, his coffee barely touched. He wanted to ask the young man to stay, but knew better. Drunk Kurapika might have been a cuddly teddy bear last night, but sober Kurapika was clearly a different beast entirely—one that required caution. Leorio had the impression of an animal on the watch for predators, suspicious of every movement in the bushes.
Two days later Leorio received a delivery—the clothes Kurapika had borrowed, freshly laundered, ironed and folded, along with a note once again apologising for the inconvenience.
“You should have gotten his number,” Pietro said as Leorio studied the neat handwriting on the note.
“Yeah, but I don’t think it would have made a difference,” Leorio admitted. “He’s probably got a boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe his colleague was actually his girlfriend?”
“Then why’d he go out to a club alone?” Pietro countered.
Leorio shrugged, having no good answer to that.