Kurapika becomes drunk and forms a sort of camaraderie with his sworn enemy.
Or
Alcohol is truth juice as well as a very potent plot device.
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Embers flittered in his eyes like stars in a stormy sea. "Everyone has desires, Lucilfer - you're a fool if you say otherwise." Kurapika spoke slowly, each syllable slurred with drunken exhaustion. "But one cannot recognize it while drowning themselves in self-pity." Sarcasm hovered on the tip of his tongue. Putting the bottle to his lips, Kurapika washed it down.
Chrollo ran his fingers through his hair, barely resisting the amusement that curled his lips. A laugh danced secretly in his chest, waltzing away in a bitter choreography.
"Desire, huh." Chrollo parroted, twirling the bottle of beer in his fingers. The glass felt icy in his hands,- almost freezing as it numbed his fingertips, - but the cold only urged him to grip it tighter. Darkly-stained glass caught the bonfire's light, flickering in the corner of his eye.
"If that's so, then pray tell, what is it you desire most, Pika?" His fingers halted, gripping the bottle's neck. Chrollo led his sight back to Kurapika, who breathed shallowly as he looked upon the fire, - the orange flames illuminated his face.
He didn't reject the nickname this time.
Silence seized their conversation for all but a moment.
"To return what was stolen from my clansmen." He finally said, low and quiet as he looked to the ground. Chrollo put a hand to his lips, expression pensive. He set his beer down beside him, cold and forgotten for the time being. He rubbed his hands that were wet with condensation, looking to Kurapika who averted his gaze.
How strange, Chrollo thought.
Kurapika reacted unnaturally despite the all-too-predictable answer, - his hands too tense, his shoulders too stiff. Even the brief waver in his voice was uncharacteristic of the proud and steadfast warrior he normally carried himself as. Chrollo gave Kurapika a blank look.
"Liar."
Kurapika glared back with drooping lids, his lips forced up into a sneer. "I am not one to rely on deception."
"Then you only deceive yourself." Chrollo concluded, picking up a stray stick from the ground and tossing it into the flames. The scent of burning firewood tickled his nose.
Kurapika scoffed, "And what on earth makes you say that?"
Chrollo almost rolled his eyes. Almost.
"You're easier to read than you think, Pika. It's quite obvious..." Chrollo said, prompting Kurapika to look up at him, a hint of curiosity weaved into his hostile glare.
Chrollo inhaled deeply before continuing, "You want them alive,"
His breath hitched in his throat when bloody scarlet flickered in once-taupe irises.
"Don't you?" His words faded into a near-whisper.
It stayed only for a brief moment, the red of Kurapika's eyes, but Chrollo couldn't help but keep on staring,- in awe of the raging hellfire that seethed as blinding scarlet jewels.
More dazzling than the morning star.
"Hah." Kurapika breathed, - dejected, as if a dying laugh. "And here I thought grief was absent in your emotional vocabulary." He said as he bowed his head into the palm of his hand, cradling his forehead with sluggish care.
Chrollo looked blankly at Kurapika, silence deafening them if not for the comfort of crackling fire. By all means, he knew the accusation was far from true. He knew quite well to blame Kurapika's prejudice for each poisonous word that dripped from his mouth and burned his skin. But still, he couldn't place why sorrow seized his chest, dried his mouth, and iced his fingers when confronted with the very fact that Kurapika still believed that he was a monster.
Despite himself, Chrollo broke the silence. "You profess pragmatism, yet you pine for a dream that is destitute of possibility." He looked to the starless sky, exhaling his pent-up frustration.
"It's not my fault god forbid raising the dead." Kurapika drawled. There was no jest in his words, - no inflections to show remorse. Just the voice of a broken boy, too fed up with his own illusory belief of justice weighing down on his shoulders like the world on his wings. Too tired to continue living with the isolation he had created, - with the dystopia he deluded himself as necessary.
It was cold. It was vulnerable. Most of all, it was real. It disarmed Chrollo, how his voice- the mere monotone that stained his mouth,- could reveal so much.
It disoriented him more when he could understand everything.
Chrollo rarely felt sympathy for others. Not for the innocent, not for the powerful, and seldom even for his own Spiders.
How strange indeed that his self-imposed nemesis could invoke such an emotion.
"Aren't you quite the hypocrite?" Chrollo asked with a crooked smile, picking up the bottle from beside him.
"Perhaps I am." Kurapika admitted, huffing.
Chrollo nearly laughed, "For all your 'Holier-than-thou' bravado, you admit to a sin so shamelessly." he teased, removing the bottle cap in one swift flick. "I underestimated you."
"Funny. Very funny." Chrollo could practically hear the roll of Kurapika's eyes. "You're a hypocrite as well." He slurred softly, yet still managed to maintain a 'matter-of-fact' tone.
"How so?" Chrollo swirled the beer in his fingers, mixing the alcohol inside the bottle. It smelled strongly of overripe fruit.
"You claim that life has no purpose, still you poured all your soul into a cause with the nebulous hope that it would outlive you. You want a legacy." Kurapika looked up slightly to meet Chrollo's eyes behind his blond hair, the mark of challenge stamped on his brow. "Isn't that the making of a hypocrite?"
Chrollo's eyes widened, mouth agape ever-so-slightly. He blinked once, twice, and a few more times before recollecting himself.
"I suppose." Chrollo mused playfully. He couldn't stop the smile that kept creeping up his cheeks. "How hypocritical of us."
"Hypocrisy is a very human trait, Lucilfer." Kurapika finally raised his head to fully face him.
Chrollo didn't miss the ghost of a smile on Kurapika's lips. He returned it with a cheeky grin, "What makes us human, then?"
Kurapika laughed dryly, the rasp of fatigue itched his throat. "I don't know." He brushed his fringe away from his face.
Chrollo could only laugh along.
"Well then," Chrollo bumped his bottle with Kurapika's, a high clink echoed through the quiet woods. "A toast to us, the hypocrites." He raised his bottle to the fire.
Kurapika followed suit, absent-mindedly, as if in a trance. "To the hypocrites." He raised his bottle to the moon.
So they drank the night away, letting alcohol burn their throats and ignorance warm their hearts.
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'He raised his bottle to the fire.'
'He raised his bottle to the moon.'
Me: hAH! ZUTARA-