#kurapika gets all the essential survival things like medicines and ration bars

[lynffles]

AU # 5

(Or not really. Continuation of this drabble from 2015′s kurokuraweek event.)

8th of December, Thursday [Present]

The looting was to be expected in a city fast descending into an apocalypse-induced chaos, and Kurapika found that he couldn't muster that much energy to care about the multiple instances of theft and aggravated assault happening all around them as Kuroro led him through the aisles of the warehouse.

Once, twice, just because he couldn't stand doing nothing about the blatant imbalance of power he was seeing, he stopped to (very quickly, in the time it took normal humans to draw breath) incapacitate groups of thugs seemingly ganging up on single opponents, but after the third such supposed victim stood up on wobbly legs, looked around at his unconscious assailants, pulled out a pistol and shot all four helpless boys without so much as hesitating, well—

Kuroro was waiting for him at the end of the aisle, eyes dark with some unidentifiable emotion—amusement? Or maybe ridicule would be more apt. “Not a word,” Kurapika growled as he caught up to the older man.

He tried to convince himself that the tilt of the head Kuroro offered him then was more deferential than mocking, but it was impossible not to default to the worst assumption. Luckily for the ceasefire they’d agreed on, Kuroro turned on his heel and headed deeper into the hardware section before Kurapika could do anything else in response.

“You’re not going to give me grief about needing to pay for the stuff we’ll be taking, are you?” Kuroro asked over his shoulder after another dozen steps.

Kurapika stopped and looked around at the empty shelves bracketing the aisle. The sign hanging from the ceiling designated this section as AMMUNITIONS in glaring red letters—of course, guns would be the first to go after the food. Boxes on the floor spilled bullets in piles of dull silver and copper, making footing a bit treacherous if one wasn’t careful about where they walked.

He shook his head, feeling weary all of a sudden. “I’m not.”

“Okay.” Footsteps as Kuroro rounded the corner and retraced his path back to where Kurapika stood waiting for him, and then the sudden sensation of cold steel against his skin: Kuroro unceremoniously dumping the promised tonfa into his arms.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting—for the tonfa to feel insubstantial, maybe, in comparison to the comforting weight of the chains he could materialize and control as well as his own limbs, but the sticks were actually rather heavy—heavier than the tanto he’d used before, and slightly longer than the standard-issue batons being used by law enforcement.

He hesitantly spun one by its handle and tested the heft of the other by holding his arm straight out in front with the length of the tonfa tucked against his forearm. Kuroro nodded and made an approving sound.

“Like I thought, they suit you.”

“They’re going to get me bitten and turned into a mindless zombie, and the first thing I’m going to do is hunt you down and eat you.”

Kuroro blinked at him. Kurapika rolled his eyes and lowered his arms. “I’m going to have to get close to use these properly, so my supposition that you’ve picked out the heaviest, largest pair just for the heck of it lends credence to my theory that this is all an elaborate plan to screw me over.”

Kuroro violently shook his head. “It’s not, I swear. They’re heavy, crushing weapons in the right hands—you’ll be splitting skulls open with these. And you’re quick enough to avoid getting bitten or infected. And, well, they also have machetes and long knives if you prefer using them, but I think blades break more easily, and there aren’t a lot left for you to choose from, anyway.”

The blond wanted to retort that the reason the knives had been cleaned out was probably because most looters had more common sense than to choose the blunt, close-combat tools over the more instantly lethal projectiles and edged weapons, but—faced with that unwavering confidence, when he couldn’t think of what he might have done to deserve it—

It was unnerving.

He looked down at the glint of metal hanging off Kuroro’s right hand: it was a metal baseball bat, of course, rounded tip resting against the sandstone flooring of the warehouse. “Typical,” he sighed under his breath. Kuroro seemed determined to live out the worst tropes of the zombie apocalypse movie genre now that they were actually experiencing one, despite his reassurances that he was taking the situation seriously, and the most aggravating thing about it was that calling him out on it would serve no purpose, because, zombies.

Never in all the movie marathon nights his subordinates had dragged him into joining had Kurapika thought that it could happen outside of fiction, and the impossibility of it was likely the reason his hate had quieted down to a low buzz at the back of his mind. And, speaking of—he had to check with Linssen and his men, get in touch with the Hunter Association and find out how bad the epidemic was, ask what he could do to help quell the spread of the infection—there were now bigger things to worry about than his personal vendetta, and Kurapika found that it didn’t rankle as much as he thought it would.

Kuroro was watching him again, dark gaze seemingly peering into his every thought, and Kurapika fought against the urge the fidget under that scrutiny.

“Let’s start by clearing out this warehouse,” the man suggested after another pause, “then kill everything that shambles within a mile’s radius all around.”

Kurapika opened his mouth to remind Kuroro to leave the unturned humans alone, but stopped to cock his head. The vast overhead spaces of the warehouse meant overall shitty acoustics and sounds echoing far more than he was comfortable with, but there was no mistaking that the general cacophony of looting had changed in tone: angry yelling turning into panicked screams, and the snarling, moaning chorus of advancing undead just audible underneath it all.

“Shall we?” Kuroro asked, free hand held out in a disgustingly inappropriate gesture of invitation.

In response, Kurapika flicked one of his tonfa in his best approximation of a flipped middle finger, and stalked off.

So remember back in December when I was yelling about the drabble deities gifting me with the full set of prompt ideas and how I was probably going to kill myself trying to keep up with the week on schedule?

This wasn’t the original idea for present. Oh, no, the original idea involved a dildo and college and me attempting to write Kurapika being a troll, which would have gotten the most satisfying reactions from anyone who read it, but I had the hardest time trying to start it.

This feels kinda lame in comparison. (￣□￣」)