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Money.
It was always about the money, wasn't it?
That's what Leorio told himself when he woke up each morning, and when he went to sleep at night.
And that's what he told himself every time he walked into the latest hideout of the Phantom Troupe, steeling himself for what he would find inside.
Today, it was a poor slip of a man, flimsy and beaten. Then again, anyone would have looked small, encircled by the criminals Leorio kept for company these days. It didn't help that the captive was unconscious, draped over one of Franklin's meaty arms like a coat, fringe of blond hair tangled over his face not quite hiding the blood dripping down his chin.
Leorio didn't have the full backstory on the gang or anything, but the ones gathered today were mostly those he thought of as old timers: in addition to giant Franklin, there there was sword-edge thin Nobunaga, hawk-nosed Pakunoda, and angel-faced Shalnark.
The only one missing was the late Uvogin, and from the way they were all looking a little too chipper, in their bloodthirsty way, it appeared they had finally captured his killer. It was hard to imagine that this tiny limp form bore the strength to take down a beast like Uvogin, but that wasn't Leorio's problem. He gave them a wide berth.
Like hell he was getting involved with this one.
He'd cultivated an air of being aloof and serious, way back when he'd been new, and still a little squeamish about some of the gang's activity. He'd still been kidding himself back then, that he'd be in and out of this life in a few months, just once this bill was paid, or that student loan. Nowadays, his conscience was a little too ragged and stained for him to point fingers, but he kept up the mysterious act, just so he could stay out of things like this.
Theoretically.
Shalnark wasn't having any of it. He ducked around Franklin, to give Leorio a friendly wave. Then he lifted one of the captive's limp arms, and made it wave too. He always did have a thing for puppets.
"The darts worked great, Doc!" he said cheerfully. "Out like a light, no mess at all."
Then why, Leorio wondered, was there blood on the captive's lip? Why were his clothes all torn, like he'd been dragged through the streets?
But he didn't say anything. He never did.
He wasn't one to flinch away from admitting the harsh truths about himself.
One, he loved money above all, because there was literally nothing more powerful than money in this world, not crime lords, not nen, not science or friendship or love.
Two, he wasn't leaving the Phantom Troupe until he had the money to pay off his med school bills, and build the clinic he wanted, and staff it besides.
And three, whatever his reasons, he fit in here, in a way he hadn't expected. They were a mismatched set to start with, and didn't ask too many questions. They understood his love for money, and respected what he brought to the table. Every day with them got easier, and his hands got dirtier, and his excuses got thinner and hollower with repetition.
Point was, he was in no position to take any moral high ground, not when he was rolling right in the gutter with the rest of them.
Franklin dropped his burden to the ground, and the captive fell, rag-doll limp, one of his arms splayed out. Nobunaga stepped forward, and put his foot on it.
"Now what are you going breaking bones for?" Leorio said. "Paralytics not good enough for ya?"
Shalnark came a little closer and said, in an exaggerated whisper, "He's the one who killed Uvogin. I wouldn't get in Nobu's way."
Leorio had gathered that, thanks. He tried to tell himself that it would make this easier to watch—the captive was no innocent either. But it was Leorio's neurotoxins paralyzing the guy, for crying out loud. He might as well have been holding him down for Nobunaga to abuse. "What's your plan, then?"
"We talked it over," said Shalnark calmly, as Nobunaga stepped down a little, eased up, and stepped down again, like he was measuring just how much force it would take to crack bone. "We decided on taking his eyes. Seemed poetic, you know?"
Those eyes, Leorio saw all of a sudden, were now open—aware, if hazy. He'd be conscious, then, if Nobunaga went through with it.
"Eyes, huh?" he said weakly. "Thought I knew everything about your little traditions here..."
"He's a Kurta. You know, the scarlet eyes?"
"Can't believe one got away," Nobunaga muttered.
"That's probably why he killed Uvo, and came after us." Shalnark had noticed the open eyes too; he broke away to lean down over the Kurta, pulling up his head by the hair, staring into them with a friendly smile. They were a cold, steel gray for the moment, filled not with fear at being at the Spider's mercy, but a slow, smoldering rage. It was a wonder that they hadn't flashed red already.
"The best revenge will be for his eyes to end up just like his clan's: in a jar, on a collector's desk somewhere." He set the head back down, and patted it like a dog. "We only need to make them go scarlet first, but we just can't get it yet. He's made of tougher stuff than the others, that's for sure. Say, you got any more tricks up your sleeve, Doc?"
So Uvogin's murder had been a vengeance thing, huh? Leorio hadn't allowed himself to feel pity for any of their victims in a long time, but watching that Kurta fighting, even paralyzed, even with his nen disabled, did funny things to Leorio's stomach. It must have been such a struggle to keep control of his emotions, to keep his eyes from turning, knowing that the moment he lost focus, he was dead.
"When did you stick him?" said Leorio.
Shalnark checked the phone that was never far from his grip. "About an hour ago, why?"
"Call him 50, 60 kilos," Leorio said thoughtfully. "Can't believe he's awake already. Should have taken longer than that."
"Should we stick him again, Doc?"
"Nah. Even if he's awake already, it should be a while before he can move. Longer than that to get his nen back. I'll have him red for you by then."
"What are you going to do to him, that we can't?" Franklin said skeptically. "Patch him up?"
"Sometimes that's what it takes," Leorio shouldered his way through them, "a doctor's touch." This put Pakunoda and Shalnark behind him, but he ignored the customary prickle that ran down his spine. After all these years, he still didn't trust his companions one bit. He bent to put his shoulder under the Kurta's arm and heaved him up, careful with the one that had been stepped on.
"You should know by now. Doctors aren't just good for putting people back together. We know exactly how they break apart."
***
The old man in a suit, the one that Kurapika couldn't help but think of as the Spiders' mob doc, had incredibly boney, uncomfortable shoulders.
It might have been a test to see if he was really incapacitated, because every step jostled and ached. He thought his one wrist might be fractured from that sword bastard stepping on it, but he had no way to tell, with the paralysis and all. It also meant that he couldn't so much as flinch as he was carted off without ceremony—half carried, half dragged, to the mob doc's lair.
To distract himself from the pain, he focused on trying to get a muscle to move, anything. A finger, a toe. When they got there, he wasn't going to blink this guy to death, he thought, willing any other part of his body to respond.
"They're a colorful bunch, aren't they?" said the doctor as they walked. As he walked, really. "I'm Leorio. Guess I won't be getting your name out of you for a while, Kurta kid."
The name of his clan made Kurapika bristle. How dare one of these filthy Spiders invoke it? He entertained himself briefly imagining what he'd say to this asshole if he could move his mouth.
That exercise took them the rest of the way there, and they came to a stop that was particularly hard on his arm. He welcomed the new surge of pain and fury, and channeled it into imagining creative ways he could murder this Leorio once he'd given his scathing retort. The doctor seemed confident that Kurapika's nen wouldn't be returning any time soon, but he was mistaken if he thought that would save him. All Kurapika needed was a few moments and a good grip on that fussy-looking necktie.
And the use of an arm, that was.
"The neurotoxins aren't my own creation, got them from this deep sea fish, ugly as you wouldn't believe. Nature is wonderful, right? Looks like you're getting muscle control back, at least enough to glare at me, but you won't be getting your nen back for a long while. You should be in a state close to Zetsu now. I'm not trying to scare you, just telling you like it is. You know you can't fight me like that."
On the contrary, Kurapika could envision a number of ways to fight him, but for now he was deposited limply to the ground, back propped up against a wide, cold surface that curved away from him. A light flicked on, and he saw that he wasn't in some surgery or torture chamber, but what looked more like a glorified boiler room. A number of pipes ran along the walls, and he suspected another one at his back. There were some tables along the walls that he couldn't see over, from his vantage point. An industrial fridge and sink tucked in the corner made it look almost like a kitchen. The sink had a long pair of pink rubber gloves draped over its edge.
"It's not much, but it's some privacy." Leorio shut the door, and locked it. "I keep some of my stuff in here, and the others don't bother me."
Kurapika thought maybe the outlines of things on the closest table might be worktools, so his earlier guesses weren't as far as it seemed.
Before he could strain to see farther, Leorio knelt down in front of him, blocking his view, and picked up his arm, the one that had been stomped on. Kurapika must have managed to convey something with his paralyzed face, because Leorio paused and said, "Would it be inappropriate to make a joke about your face freezing like that?"
He began to tap along Kurapika's arms, up and down. It was probably some kind of nen torture ability, but Kurapika couldn't tell anything about it, without nen of his own. This man hadn't been bluffing about the Zetsu. He could only hope that he was wrong about the duration. Or that being faced with a nen-less opponent made him complacent.
A tortured groan came out of Kurapika's lips, and Leorio jerked in surprise. Throughout it, his grip on Kurapika's arm didn't falter, hands steady as a surgeon's.
"Already talking, huh? Either I got the dosage wrong, or you really hate my guts."
"Why not... both?" Kurapika managed to grind out, and felt a disproportionate satisfaction.
"Because I never get the dosage wrong." Leorio pulled a syringe out of his pocket to demonstrate, and Kurapika could have slapped himself, if he had any control of his hands. If the paralytics weren't intended to wear off yet, he shouldn't have given away that they had. Stupid!
To his surprise, the doctor didn't bring the needle anywhere near him, only put it back, and continued to tap along his arm, and then the other one.
"What're you... doing," Kurapika said.
"Ah, one of my abilities," Leorio said. "By palpating your limbs, I can get a pretty good picture of their status. Good news? No broken bones, not even a fracture. Bad news? Well, I guess your whole present situation is a whole lot of bad news. I'll get you some ice."
Kurapika's hand twitched at that. They both stared at it: Leorio turning, eyes widening, Kurapika looking at it from the corner of his vision. For a second, Leorio didn't do anything. Then he scrambled into motion, grabbing a length of chain hung from somewhere out of Kurapika's line of vision, and began to wind it hurriedly across his chest and arms, securing him to whatever pipe he was leaning against.
"Something funny?" Leorio said, so Kurapika must have made some sort of face. The irony, of being chained up by the Spiders, forced into Zetsu, when that was the very fate he'd envisioned for them. But after the dart, he'd woken to find his own nen chains dissipated. He could only hope that they came back when the nerve agent wore off. And that he was still alive by then. His arm felt naked without them, light and vulnerable.
Leorio's hands moved quickly, firm now where they'd been gentle earlier. He made three loops: shoulder and chest and waist. Kurapika managed to jerk against the chains just as Leorio was finishing the third, loosening them with a clatter. The shock on Leorio's face was satisfying, but not as satisfying as it would have been to actually get free—Leorio only yanked it tight again and secured it in his grip, just as Kurapika began to fight back in earnest.
It was too little, too late. A lock clicked shut behind him, and Kurapika sagged against the chains. So this was what it felt like to be in Chain Jail. He'd make sure to put Leorio through it, he promised himself, sometime soon.
"So how'd you win first crack at me alone?" Kurapika spat. His mouth still felt stiff, like he hadn't regained full control of it; the words dropped from his lips by sheer force of loathing alone. "Out of all the Spiders, you were the most bloodthirsty?"
"Something like that," said Leorio, and cupped his cheek. The calluses on on his fingers were gathered at the tips, as if from the manipulation of fine instruments, rather than at the palm, where a weapon would wear. Kurapika allowed this for just a few seconds. Then he snapped his jaw around, and bit him.
He tasted blood, and Leorio swore, but didn't strike back. With an incredible presence of mind, he grabbed Kurapika's face with his opposite hand, applied fingerpoint pressure to either side of Kurapika's jaw, until he had to release his bite.
When the doctor got up for a bandage, his fingers were bloody. Kurapika took a grim pride in that, but he was still unsettled. The reaction had been clinical, practiced, and oddly non-violent. If someone had clamped down on Kurapika's fingers, as hard as they could, he would have hit back. The lack of any such reaction was disconcerting, far more worrying than the other Spiders' attempts to enrage him.
"You bite a man, and you still don't have a speck of red in your eyes," Leorio muttered, the last of it muffled as he bit the end of the bandage he'd wrapped around his fingers, and pulled to tighten. "Who knows if the accepted medical knowledge about you Kurta is real or not. The books all say you have less control over it than this. There's so few of you now to confirm."
Kurapika scoffed.
"Something I said?"
"So few of us. I'm the only one left." Whether Leorio had been there for the original slaughter, he was a Spider now, and that meant he would be taken to account for it.
"That's gotta be shitty."
"I have excellent self-control," said Kurapika, who had left his clan as probably the least self-controlled Kurta ever recorded. It was only his extensive training, to master his nen, that had given him the degree of restraint he now possessed. That and, with the rest of them all dead, he had also inherited the title of the Kurta with the most self-control. So there was that. "You have no idea what kind of training I've been through, to prevent monsters like you from being able to harvest my eyes. You won't be able to make me turn. Might as well gouge your own eyes out and kill yourself."
"I don't really know if that follows," Leorio scratched his head with his non-injured hand, "logically. But it's my job to come out of here with scarlet eyes, so if I don't do it, it really is my head on the line."
"Are you really a Spider?" Kurapika said. "You don't seem nearly competent enough."
Leorio thought about this for a moment. Then he began to unbutton his jacket.
"What are you doing."
The jacket came off; Leorio hung it over a convenient pipe, and smoothed out a crease. Then he began to take off his undershirt.
"What," Kurapika said. "Are you. Doing."
Leorio turned around, slipping the undershirt over his shoulders, so that Kurapika could see the spider tattooed across his entire back, emblazoned with the number 4. Just the sight alone might have turned Kurapika's eyes red, before. Now, he managed to hang on to his calm by the shreds of his fingernails.
"It was rhetorical, you idiot," Kurapika hissed. "What else would you be doing here, if you weren't one of them?"
"I didn't take off my shirt just to show you," Leorio said calmly, turning back to face him. His chest was surprisingly hairy, a dark trail of it running down to his navel, and disappearing under the waistband of his pants. He came over, dropped his shirt on the ground, and casually straddled Kurapika's legs, pinning them in place.
"What—"
Kurapika was cut off, when Leorio grabbed his chin, leaned in, and kissed him.
It was, all things considered, a dumb thing to do. Kurapika had just bitten the last piece of Leorio's anatomy to come near his mouth.
But Kurapika was too shocked to react this time. A cold feeling was sinking into the pit of his stomach. "No," he said, muffled, into Leorio's lips. "No, no, no." Leorio's bare chest brushed against his tunic, and he was suddenly desperate to keep it on—but Leorio was already reaching for it, pulling it aside at the lap, as far as it would go under the chains.
How naive of him, to think that the Spiders wouldn't sink this low.
How foolish of him, not to have prepared for this.
"I've seen you resist pain and anger," Leorio said, and traced a hand up Kurapika's leg, until he was cupping his groin. Kurapika thrashed, but there was no leverage, not with his arms bound at his sides, and this bastard's weight on his knees. Even though the fabric of his pants, Leorio's palm was impossibly hot. "Maybe there's something else we can try."
The hand went away. Leorio removed the necktie still dangling uselessly around his neck, and wrapped it around Kurapika's eyes, shutting out the light.
"Doesn't this defeat the purpose?" Kurapika snapped. "Idiot!" He was horrified to find that his voice shook.
"I assume they'll still turn under there," Leorio said, patiently knotting the tie in place, even as Kurita tried to writhe away. "I don't need you looking at me through this. I'll check when we're done."
Blind now, it all seemed to happen so fast. His pants were pulled down, exposing him to the chill air, and then that warm hand again, even hotter this time, skin to skin. He bucked backwards, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go, as it began to stroke him up and down, just a circle of thumb and forefinger at first, until he grew firm enough that Leorio had to put his whole palm into the motion. It felt good, he wanted to deny how good it felt, but a finger stroked his slit, spilled a bead of wetness from it, and he knew he wouldn't fool Leorio if he tried.
"Don't you do this," he growled, though he wasn't sure if he was talking to Leorio, or his own dick, which was taking interest, despite his best efforts.
"Easy does it," Leorio crooned back, possibly at Kurapika, possibly at his cock. Like he was talking to some goddamn animal. "I'm not going to hurt you. Just let it happen."
"You're a monster," Kurapika spat. "Just like the rest of them," but he was helpless to resist. Leorio knew exactly what he was doing, speeding up when Kurapika bucked against him, and easing off when he whined. Before long he was gasping against the chains, head thrown back, eyes watering under the blindfold, and when he rocked his hips against those wicked motions, it was with them, rather than against them.
When Kurapika's eyes turned, the whole world was plunged into red. Even the darkness behind the blindfold took on a bloody tint. A new strength suffused his limbs. The pipe behind him and the chains binding him both gave a creaking groan, as his struggles took on more force, but the cursed things held.
He had only ever entered this state through fury before, and there was a different quality to it now, like the heat that suffused throughout him was burning him alive from inside—and his body was only too happy to be consumed. There was a passion, a need, a lust, unlike anything he'd ever experienced, sweeping through his entire body, down to the soles of his feet, desperately seeking an outlet.
Leorio seemed to notice something had changed, because his motions faltered. Kurapika snarled, with a force that he'd previously only accessed through rage, "Don't you dare stop now."
And the doctor, damn him, chuckled.
He switched to his injured hand briefly, maybe to give the other one a break. Kurapika only noticed because the warm, callused skin was replaced by cool bandages instead, and the texture of them threatened to undo him, every layer of cloth seeming to catch against his skin, driving him wild. "I should have bitten it clean off," Kurpaika spat, "your hand," and received only another chuckle for his efforts.
"Why do you think god made us with two of them?"
Then the first hand was back, and oh, this was Leorio's dominant hand for certain, dexterous and practiced and sure. It worked him with a doctor's precision, that large, warm wonderful heat growing ever hotter and slicker.
His previous orgasms had all been quiet, furtive affairs, but he had never done it with scarlet eyes before, all restraint thrown to the winds. When the sensations pushed him over the edge, he screamed, so loudly that the other Spiders probably thought he was being murdered in here after all. Leorio belatedly muffled his mouth with his other hand, the bandaged one, and the reminder of that sensation against his dick made him huff and whimper.
Eventually, he became aware of something soft wiping the spend from his cock, and then Leorio pulled up his pants for him too, even carefully tucking his softening penis back in, to the left, where he'd found it.
Still exhausted, he didn't resist as Leorio finally removed the necktie blindfolding him, and he was stabbed with light, sharp and suffused with red.
"Ahh, there we go."
Kurapika didn't need telling, he already knew. Despite his best efforts, his eyes had turned scarlet.
"You know, I've always wanted to see these up close. Not in a jar, I mean. Living. Call it professional curiosity."
So this was it. All of it had been for nothing. The doctor had gotten what he wanted, and Kurapika's eyes would end up on someone's trophy table, just like those of his brethren. Oddly, he didn't feel fear, only rage. Was this the fate of every last Kurta, to end up like an elk's rack, an elephant's tusks? To be reduced to objects, to never receive the vengeance that their blood was crying out for?
A sudden shame flooded him, that he had not only allowed it, but demanded this violation. He had trained so hard, but it hadn't been enough. He hadn't been able to imagine the depravity of these criminals. He had been weak, he had failed, and now he would pay for it with his life, and with it, his dreams of justice.
When Leorio got up to wash his hands, he had to awkwardly adjust a bulge in his pants. Kurapika spared a wish that it would shrivel and fall off. It would serve him right.
The device that Leorio came back with didn't look like the most efficient gouging tool. Kurapika still closed his eyes against it, making the doctor tsk. "Keep your eyes open, please, or I'll make you."
Kurapika opened them. It wasn't like Leorio couldn't cut through his eyelids anyway, to get at them.
The device was held it up at various angles around Kurapika's face, and made clicking sounds. At each click, Kurapika expected the incision to come, but he refused to flinch. A few times it did touch the surface of his eyeball, an unpleasant, invasive motion that Leorio pinioned him against the pipes for, saying belatedly, "don't blink."
"Why don't you just paralyze me again," Kurapika snapped, none too wisely.
"Ahh, so that's how it works." Leorio said, reading something from the device. "Good news, Kurta boy, I think these samples will do just the thing." He went to one of his desks, and began scribbling on a pad of paper
"You're going to make knock-offs," Kurapika realized. He was surprised there was still more indignation for him to find, but somehow, on top of everything else, the idea of fake Kurta eyes floating around the black market was too much for him to swallow.
"No, they'll never pass for the real thing. I can't see how to keep the cytoplasm from disgorging itself, once I've affixed it to the sclera..." Leorio shook his head, scratched a line out, and flipped the page to keep writing. "But it'll fool the Spiders for a couple days. They'll think I've killed you."
"What? Why?" Kurita wanted to bang his head back against the pipe, trying to make sense of this. "With what eyes?"
"I'm in med school," came the absent reply, like that made things obvious. The only thing it made obvious to Kurapika was that this guy wasn't even a real freaking doctor. "I've always got a couple spare eyeballs lying around."
Keep him talking, Kurapika told himself. Gather yourself. Turn your eyes back, and he won't be able to take them from you. But the thought came unbidden that Leorio would just do... that... to him again, and instead of pulling the scarlet from his eyes, it only brought a flush to his cheek.
"And instead what? You'll keep me here?" A sudden vision of being kept in a locker somewhere, permanently paralyzed, only pulled out for a quick fuck, swelled up like a horrible fever dream. "I won't be kept, I'm warning you."
"Oh god no. You should feel your nen coming back in, oh, maybe five hours or so. I intend to get you as far away from here as possible before that happens. And from me, but that goes without saying."
"You know if you let me go, I'll come right back. I swore to kill every last Spider, and I keep my promises."
"Like a damn rodent," Leorio sighed, finally putting his pen down. "I got those humane mousetraps and everything. Released them miles away and they just came straight back—Uh, that's beside the point." He came back over to Kurapika, and rocked back into a squat. "Any chance I can convince you to... not do that? They're kind of my meal ticket here, buddy."
Lying would have been the smart thing to do. Kurapika didn't entertain the notion for a minute. "I won't rest until I tear every last one of you apart," he promised. He still hadn't succeeded in calming himself. Everything felt different in this stage, more hotblooded, more vibrant. Though he had entered it through other passions, they were only a short step away from fury.
"As soon as they see you again, they'll know what I've done," said Leorio. "I'll be the first one you kill—besides Uvogin, I mean—without even laying a hand on me."
"Pity." Kurapika fixed the full scarlet intensity of his gaze on Leorio until he was sure he was understood—he would be more than okay with Leorio's death. The only pity would be that he didn't get to do it himself.
"Sure hope you know what you're doing, Kurta boy. With that kind of threat, I'm getting myself the hell out of here. I won't be around to help you out next time."
That didn't make any sense. Why not just kill him, then, instead of letting him go? Why go through all the trouble with the fake eyeballs and the... cytoplasm? He'd believe it when he saw it. For now, he offered a nasty grin. "You think running is going to save you?"
"Well, you know how the saying goes. I don't have to outrun the bear." Leorio jerked a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the rest of the Spiders' hideout. "I just have to outrun this lot."