Battlefield

Questionable Answers

Chapter 6

Questionable Answers

Kurapica woke up; that was the first surprise.

He couldn't say that it was a bad sort of surprise, but it was one nonetheless. He was lying on a narrow bed, the room bathed in shadows, but just light enough to be able to see. He lifted his head and recognized the quarantine area, the heavy drapes on the windows a dead giveaway. He could see some sunlight try to peer around the edges of the curtains, but couldn't tell what time of day it was, only that night was still a ways off yet.

Carefully, he pushed himself into a seated position and looked around. Kuroro had gone, having somehow managed to slip out of the room without Kurapica noticing. That alone was more than a little worrisome; Kurapica wouldn't normally have slept through someone moving from behind him like that. He touched the mattress next to him and it still felt a little warm, but he couldn't tell if it was because he'd moved around in his sleep, or if Kuroro had been lying next to him until quite recently.

He got to his feet and walked to one of the windows, pushing the curtain aside to look out onto the street, trying to determine the time of day. The sun was pretty high in the sky, so it had to be some time close to noon. The emotional state he'd gone through must have exhausted his body, because he remembered it being afternoon when Kuroro had dragged him back to the base. He must have slept close to twenty hours. Kurapika hoped that it wasn't due to the bite.

He glanced at his bandaged hand, noticing that it had slipped a little during his sleep. Leaning his hand down against the windowsill, he used his other hand to tug gently at the knot, trying to make it come loose so he could have a look at the skin underneath. It took some doing, but he eventually managed to undo the knot. Gently, he unwrapped his hand, hissing softly as air hit his abused skin. As expected, there was the sharp imprint of teeth on either side of the edge of his palm-dark, nearly black, with a nasty-looking, deep bruise in the middle. It looked pretty horrible.

He felt like himself, however; that was the second surprise.

He didn't feel lost inside, felt completely in control of his own movements, and didn't hunger for anything overly morbid. Against all expectations, he had both survived the bite and not turned rabid. Turning his hand this way and that, he frowned to himself, but was distracted from his thoughts as he heard slow, careful footsteps out in the atrium, heading towards the pawn shop. The sounds stopped by the door, then came keys jiggling and finally one of them slid into the lock and turned.

Kurapica opened and closed his hand a few times as he turned to fully face the door. He watched it open slowly, which was why he spotted Kuroro nearly dropping a tray and some travel mugs as he tried to get his hand from the knob without spilling anything. Kurapica studied him with narrowed eyes, not going over to help, despite the obvious struggle to manage a large tray, two metal coffee tumblers, a set of keys and a heavy door with only two hands. Kuroro managed to somehow keep everything under control and walked into the room without dropping anything, when he noticed Kurapica and let the door clang shut behind him.

"Kurapica," he greeted. "How're you feeling?"

He shoved the keys into a pocket and transferred the tray to his newly freed hand, which allowed him to better hold the mugs against his chest with his other arm. He set the food down on the nightstand closest to the door, then grabbed one of the travel mugs he'd wedged into the crook of his elbow.

"I thought you'd like coffee," he added, when Kurapica simply crossed his arms and took a step back from him. "You seemed to be sleeping fairly deeply, so I only stepped out for a minute to get you some breakfast."