#up until in space I hadn’t seen examples of lio’s acting

[floofle-universe]

You know now that we’ve seen mark and lio interact as characters in a production I’m really looking forward to seeing them as Dave and Katie in the up coming Edge of sleep show. Not enough people talk about that.

[juju-on-that-yeet]

There Are Worse Things I Could Do, Chapter 7/10

Summary: The longer Yancy stays missing, the more Lio worries...and the less he can deny how he feels.  Warnings: None Characters: Illinois

Read on AO3

Enjoy!

~

The days pass, and Yancy doesn’t turn up. Every hint the egos get on a security camera, every potential sighting, all of it turns up empty, again and again. They’re sure they’re getting close, sure they’re moments from catching him, but Yancy evades them every time. One of King’s squirrels even sees him (at least, according to King), but he isn’t in the park that the squirrel leads the others to. Dark is just about at his wit’s end, and so are the other egos, so are Yancy’s friends.

So is Lio.

But Lio, through it all, is still trying to keep his rationality. He’s still trying to hold onto his sanity even though he feels like it’s slipping. Ever since that dream he had after Yancy’s first day gone, he’s had a mantra to repeat:

“I can’t be in love with Yancy.”

It’s only realistic. Lio can’t love Yancy because Yancy is his friend. He can’t love Yancy because he doesn’t want to lose him like he lost every other partner. He can’t love Yancy because he already rejected him, and he can’t just take it back after all Yancy’s gone through because of it. Lio holds onto these truths, hammers them into his mind whenever he remembers how it felt to hold Yancy in that dream.

“He’s been through enough. He doesn’t need this. He doesn’t need me.”

It hurts Lio to think about Yancy’s hurt. It hurts him to know how he hurt his best friend, hurt him enough to send him running away. To send Yancy of all people running away from home. Lio can’t imagine how he must feel, if fleeing his home and his friends is preferable to seeing Lio again.

So he can’t love Yancy, he can’t.

But that’s the wrong word to use, isn’t it?

Maybe Lio always knew, deep down, how he felt. Maybe he knew when Yancy first confessed; it’s hard to tell. But he certainly knows now. There’s a reason he’s telling himself that he can’t, not that he doesn’t.

Because there’s no question about it: He does love Yancy.

But he can’t.

Not now.

Not after he’s ruined everything.

The realization doesn’t hit him all at once, and that’s probably a good thing, because he’s so frayed at the edges already from worrying about Yancy. It comes in pieces, every time he tells himself he can’t, can’t, can’t. His heart beats back that he does, does, does, day in and day out. It feels so anticlimactic, because what can Lio do about it now? How can he address these feelings now? He doesn’t speak of them to Magnum, because Magnum would give him comfort and sympathy that he doesn’t think he deserves. What does Lio deserve for lying to himself and in turn lying to Yancy, and breaking his heart? He might speak of them to Yandere to get the punishment he deserves, but he still (barely) has his sanity, and no sane person would give Yandere a reason to stab them.

Said ego is still giving Lio dirty looks whenever he passes him in the hall, but that happens less and less often every day. Lio, as little as he sees Yandere, can see how Yancy’s disappearance is weighing on him: He always looks sad, angry, worried, like he’s about to cry or just finished crying. Lio’s seen him come home late at night or early in the morning, and while he could just be a grieving insomniac like Lio, Lio thinks he might be out looking for Yancy.

Not that it helps. Yancy stays gone. Lio’s heart keeps hurting.

One day, Lio finds himself walking to Dark’s office on Bim’s behalf. Bim needs some funding approval for an upcoming show, but the climate of Ego Inc. these past days has left him too nervous to approach Dark himself. Lio doesn’t blame him, but he isn’t happy to be meeting with Dark, either. The only reason he doesn’t refuse is because he knows that Bim’s taken Yancy’s disappearance hard, too: The pair became fast friends to no one’s surprise, and maybe Bim’s similarity to Yancy is why Lio befriended him, too. Regardless, Lio eventually makes it to Dark’s door, and he’s about to knock when he realizes people are talking inside. One is Dark, of course, deep and resonant even behind a door, but the other is higher, wavering, sad. It takes Lio a moment to recognize Yandere.

“What if we never find him?” Yandere sniffles.

“We will, love,” Dark insists, “Either we’ll find him or he will return of his own free will. He’s an ego as much as you are, and he’ll be pulled back to the building before long, just as you were.”

Lio thinks he knows what Dark means; Yancy mentioned offhand once that it took Yandere a while to find Ego Inc. when he was first made. There’s a pause, and Lio wonders what Yandere’s thinking.

“Yami,” Yandere finally says, halting and uncertain, “What are you going to do when he’s found, then?”

“He’ll need to be punished, Yandere,” Dark replies without hesitation. “He can’t run off and face no consequences. He may be new, but he knows the rules here.”

Lio feels panic spike through his chest. Punishment? What kind of punishment? Hasn’t Yancy gone through enough? Dark may not know about his romantic anguish, but he definitely knows that Yancy is miserable out there. Every sighting the egos have gotten of him so far has confirmed it. How could Dark be thinking of increasing Yancy’s suffering?

“Yamiiiii,” Yandere whines, as though Dark is threatening to take away Yandere’s cell phone instead of hurt his friend, “Do you really have to? He’s already so unhappy, won’t he want to run away again if he gets punished?”

“He won’t be able to run again,” Dark says, “He’ll be in the void.”

“What!? How long, Yami??”

“It depends on how long it takes for him to return.” Dark’s voice is impassive. “He’ll spend one day in the void for every day he remains missing.”

Lio almost gasps, but bites his tongue to keep the sound in. Lio’s heard horror stories about Dark’s void from the other egos, heard about that awful blackness, that terrible vacuum of space where it’s just a little too cold and a little too quiet. Even a day there alone is enough to drive a person mad, and Yancy’s already been gone for many.

But it’s not just that the void itself is terrifying. It’s how lonely it is, how dark and quiet, how it leaves a person with their own thoughts, with delusions that the void invites. How similar it is to solitary confinement, the one part of Happy Trails that Yancy hated, that he feared. Even now he can’t talk about it without shaking, even now he sometimes has nightmares about it.

To be thrown back into it after so many days already alone and lost would break him.

“That’s too much, Yami!” Yandere cries. “And you know how much Yan-kun hated solitary! It’d really hurt him to be trapped in your void!”

“He should have thought about that before he left,” Dark says, unsympathetic. “The rules of the house were explained thoroughly to him when he first arrived here, and he should have known better. Running off and living among humans puts us all at risk.”

“I know, but there has to be another way!” Yandere insists. “There has to be something else you could do, something that won’t hurt him so bad!”

Lio finds himself nodding, even though the others can’t see him. He doubts Dark could be convinced not to punish Yancy at all, but there has to be something, anything but the void to punish Yancy with. A surge of protective fear rushes through Lio as he thinks of Yancy in Dark’s void, scared and alone. He won’t let that happen. He doesn’t care what he has to do, he doesn’t even care if he has to take Yancy’s place, he’s not letting Yancy relive his deepest trauma.

“Fuck, I really am in love with him.”

Lio can’t deny it anymore, his poor job of denying it in the first place notwithstanding.

“The rules exist for a reason, Yandere,” Dark chides Yandere, “And they cannot be broken or bent for anyone.”

“You can’t put Yancy in your void!” Yandere yells, now angry. “If you do, I won’t speak to until you let him out! In fact, I think I’ll start right now.”

“Yandere, be reasonable.”

Silence.

“Yandere.”

More silence. Lio waits for Dark to get angry.

“Love, this is ridiculous.”

Lio wonders what kind of expression Yandere is making.

“Yandere, I have to uphold the rules of this building. I cannot have Yancy’s cohorts following his poor example.”

Is…Dark trying to reason with Yandere? Instead of citing his rule as law and kicking Yandere out? Lio sort of knew that Dark and Yandere were together; it’s an unspoken fact that that the whole building knows. But Lio hadn’t expected someone like Dark to be so easily influenced by a significant other.

“Darling, you’re acting like a child.” His voice isn’t even annoyed, it’s almost pleading.

But Dark loves Yandere, doesn’t he? He loves Yandere, so he doesn’t want to see him upset. Lio’s heart aches. This whole conversation wouldn’t be happening if Lio had just managed not to hurt the one he loves.

Many moments pass in silence. Lio knows stubbornness runs deep in most of the egos (probably thanks to Mark), so he can’t guess who will win this spat. But he still needs to get the funding for Bim, so he debates knocking and breaking the tension (or possibly causing more annoyance, but he can’t wait here forever). Finally, Dark sighs.

“Fine.” He sounds exasperated, but incredibly, not angry. “I will not put Yancy in the void as punishment when he returns. Is that satisfactory, Yandere?”

Another pause.

“…You won’t put him in The Cell either, right?” Yandere asks, cautious.

Dark lets out a frustrated huff that Lio can barely hear through the door. Apparently The Cell, the magically-enforced containment cell in the basement of Ego Inc., was Dark’s back-up plan for Yancy. But even Lio can tell that Yandere won’t stand for that, either.

“Fine,” Dark says again, even more annoyed. “I’ll come up with something else. But whatever it is, you are forbidden to object.”

“Arigato, Yami!!” Yandere exclaims. Lio hears him kiss Dark with a loud, exaggerated smack. “I’ll make this up to you later, promise.” Yandere’s voice has taken on a sultry timbre.

Lio, rather than think about those implications, finally knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Dark says. Either he’s hiding his annoyance or Yandere’s promise has eased it, Lio can’t tell which.

When Lio enters, Dark is sitting at his desk, and Yandere is sitting on the desk to his left. Yandere’s already pouting at the interruption, and further scowls when he sees that Lio is the one interrupting. Lio gets through the request as quickly as possible under Yandere’s hateful glare, and Dark grants it and sends Lio back to Bim to relay the message, expressing some annoyance at Bim for not coming here himself. Lio leaves as quickly as he came, trying to play it cool as usual and pretend like he didn’t hear the earlier conversation.

But it was a lot easier to play it cool when he actually felt cool. Ever since Yancy ran away – hell, ever since that confession – Lio’s only felt sad, foolish, regretful.

Heartbroken.

If this is how Yancy feels, then no wonder he ran away.

“Yancy, wherever you are, I’m sorry.”