#forgive me for basically making Lio a red version of Chloe Price please lmao

[demonhuntersuggestion]

((okay so..... I’ve begun to realize that Lio’s interactions with other characters lately are kinda far from the original ideas I had for his character, so... here’s some random drabbles of Lio when he’s got no one to talk to, set at random points between when he and Annie broke up and now))

Title: I Don’t Care, I Don’t Care 

---

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-

He had trouble getting home. For one, it was dead midnight. And one of the three people he trusted in the entire world just told him to fuck off and god it hurt so much, and he was too focused on holding back tears to navigate efficiently back home. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have run off immediately after they’d talked--maybe he was a bit hasty in assuming the conversation was over, maybe she had more to say to him, maybe he should have taken time to collect the things he’d left in the Realm before leaving her life forever. But now was too late, and there was no way he was going back to her after learning just how she felt now. 

It didn’t matter anyway. She split off from him and he should just accept it. 

He felt a storm of emotions rampaging in him, some volatile mix of sadness, anger, fear, regret, and confusion, all reaching out to rip his heart out of his chest.

He swallowed it and kept walking. 

---

He barely graduated with a passing GPA. He should’ve been relieved, but... What would stop him from going home now? 

As it turns out, it’s fairly easy to just not go home. Who would’ve thought? It raised plenty of questions, but he was quick-witted and distant enough that they stopped asking him, and at the very least trusted him not to get killed. Or worse, disgrace the family. 

Or whatever.

He had one or two friends who would’ve been happy to keep him company. But he knew that’d change soon enough: Wilson, he had potential, and he had dreams, and his own demons to run from. Besides, he’d be going off to college soon, and An--Aurelio would just be here, in Fairbairn. Existing. 

There goes another friend. 

The goodbye was tearful, for one of them, anyway. Wilson promised to keep in touch, but they both knew how busy he’d be once he got there. The odds he’d remember the only other queer kid in town were pretty slim.

The two of them shared a quick, awkward hug before Aurelio never saw him again. 

---

“Annie.”

It was really only a name. Just another sound in the vicious cacophony of jargon we call “several conversations happening at once. He fiddled with the fork and the dry slice of turkey. 

“Annie.”

His eyebrows furrow, and he thinks a little more into it. Was it normal to linger on this kind of bullshit for so long? How many weeks has it been? 

“Annie.”

There was no way his retrospective bullshit could be typical. He must’ve been all kinds of pathetic. He sta

“Anaïs, are you even trying to listen?”

He blinked out of his thoughts and looked at his father, who was glaring at him with the look of a man who was minorly inconvenienced for the last time. He sounded a lot louder when he snapped at Aurelio, but nobody else at the table seemed to have noticed, chattering away ignorantly. Or maybe they just didn’t care?

He blinked again, composing a simple response of “Sorry, dad, I zoned out.”

The man didn’t seem to approve. “God, you’ve been such a crybaby lately,” and then he stiffened, like he’d accidentally slipped out a swear in front of a child, and turned to the plain man sitting on his left and said “Sorry, Father.” 

The man, apparently a priest, regarded him with cool disinterest, “Don’t worry about it,” he replies, dismissing the venial sin. He seemed more concerned with the way the teen at the end of the table seemed more withdrawn than other teenagers. And how slowly she responded to her own name. 

Not that he seemed to notice. Aurelio was too lost in his thoughts to care. 

He waited until the Thanksgiving meal was over, and he slipped away almost unnoticed. 

---

I should’ve gone to art school. 

He took a step back and admired his handiwork. The culmination of several hours’ time and a few potential charges of vandalism. He chuckled, capping the can of spray paint and tossing it back into his bag, setting about to collect the others. 

“Hey!”

He took a glance in the general direction of the voice, barely catching a glimpse of police officer-blue before he was off, scrambling up a nearby wall and flying off cackling across the rooftops as the cop frustratedly yelled at him with the disappointing knowledge that there was no way he was catching that kid anymore. 

Now, he had to deal with rather obscene “street art” across the front of the local high school. 

He was definitely gonna get his ear chewed off for this.

---

He felt dizzy, giggly, really warm, and weirdly extroverted all at the same time. The other guy didn’t seem surprised. Aurelio seemed to have trouble remembering his name--Alan? Alex? Abram? 

“How d’you like it?” Abram asked, a corner of his lips curled up in an amused smile. 

“Isss...” the younger boy slurs, “Iz weird,” he states, swaying a little on his feet. 

He kind of liked the feeling. There were plenty of things he was forgetting, but he didn’t really seem to care. He just focused on a few things, like staying on his two feet, and the bottle in his hand, and how the boy in front of him laughed, at had put his hands on his shoulders now, and was holding him steady so he didn’t fall over. 

Aurelio looked the other boy in the eyes. “Hey,” he said, leaning into Alan a little bit for support.

There was a look in his eye, something that Aurelio couldn’t yet identify as loving, malicious, or just lustful.. “Yeah?”

Aurelio half-closed his eyes, and he leaned in real close, so close he could feel Aiden’s breath on his lips, and whispered: “I like girls.”

They didn’t hang out much after that.

---

The woods were really quiet. Maybe because almost everyone, even Azzy, told him to steer clear of them. He enjoyed it out there. He almost felt at home. 

Of course, that didn’t stop him from tucking his dad’s .45 into the waistband of his jeans whenever he came out here.

Just in case.

---

He felt much better about the haircut after he got it. He’d never had it cut so short before! It was revolutionary. He ran a hand through the shaved fuzz on the side of his head, marveling at how stiff it felt now. 

I should’ve done this a long time ago.

The beanie felt strange as he covered his new undercut under it. The fabric was on his ears and neck now, and he was weirdly conscious of how it felt on skin now, rather than behind a layer of hair. 

It was a necessary discomfort, of course. There was no way his family would approve of his new style. There was a large chance his father would freak out, and his mother would cry at the gross, gay hairstyle her kid wore now. 

He wondered how they’d react when he dyed it. 

---

Two little orange lights sparked to life in the night behind the convenience store, one after the other. Two people breathed in, and one of them loudly coughed as the other coolly breathed in and out without issue.

The coughing one stared disgustedly at the thing that sat between his fingers. “How the hell do you enjoy this?”

The store clerk shrugged, “You get used to it.” 

They stood there in awkward silence for a moment, Aurelio staring at the cigarette in his hand. Then he brought it back to his lips and took in a breath.

---

The new room was sparsely furnished. A simple bed, a writing desk, and an empty shelf. There was a window opposite the door, hidden behind a set of brown curtains. He rolled his suitcase into a corner and dropped his backpack on the bed. 

It was home, now. 

It’d take some getting used to.

Father Francis stood behind him, hands in his coat pockets. “Is this good enough for you?” 

Aurelio rested his hands on his hips, glancing around the room. “Isn’t this guest room for visiting priests, or something?” 

The Father chuckled. “There’s a second one, just in case. If it comes to that, I’ll explain your ‘unique situation,’ and we can decide on who sleeps on the couch.” 

The boy was still skeptical. Very much so. “Why are you letting me stay here, again?”

Francis, to his credit, was kind and patient with the antsy young man. “You needed help, so I offered it. And besides,” he glanced warily at a very specific space in the air behind Aurelio. 

“I feel like you could use someone looking out for you.”

---

“Y’know, everyone always told me ‘smoking in the forest is dangerous! Weh, weh, weh!’“ Aurelio mimicked, even throwing in some hand gestures. He speaks around the cigarette in his mouth, “I mean, I know it is, but like... Okay, okay, yeah, I’m at fault here. Whatever.” 

The injured demon didn’t seem to understand him. Aurelio sighed and took the cigarette out of his mouth, pressing the lit end against the vulnerable creature’s skin. It hissed and writhed beneath him, weakly swiping at him with its claws. 

“God, you’re not even sentient are you?” he realizes, tossing the extinguished cigarette aside. He draws Francis’ 1911 from his holster. “Still, the living ashtray thing was kind of a dick move, so... Sorry about that, I guess.”

He clicked the safety off and pointed the gun at the monster’s head.

“And, uh, this.” 

---

He looked himself in the bathroom mirror. There was red all over him, and the sink, and the floor of the shower, and a little bit on the normal floor. 

But for a first dye job, it wasn’t that bad.

A giddy little smile bubbled up in him, and he ran a hand through his still-damp,  bright red hair. 

Yeah. Not bad at all.