Chapter Text
The quiet settled around Lio like an uncomfortable weight on his shoulders. He waited, for days, expecting something else—another courier, a letter. The police, the FBI. He teetered on the edge for days before he finally talked himself down. If Kray hadn’t pulled the trigger yet, he wasn’t going to without another provocation.
Theoretically, that meant that Lio should back off. He should cut his losses and get out of here while he still could.
Instead, he accessed Kray’s bank account again and donated $9,565 to a non-profit that pledged to help workers unionize. This particular non-profit had even been working with some companies under the Foresight Industries portfolio, and there had been a few contentious articles about it. Everything was still in the early stages, but they had stirred up enough mess that Kray would know about them (and probably want to crush them). Lio was sane enough to at least make the donation anonymously, but Kray would still see where it went if the bastard even checked his accounts--not that he needed to. He had an obscene amount of liquid capital, it almost made Lio nauseous. As for the monetary amount . . . it was part of the message. Lio had combed through to figure out how much Kray had spent on those gifts he had sent--and Lio was careful to include the costs of the courier fees, too. It was a pointed message, but it was still only testing the waters. Kray had just made a big play, was he going to follow up, or was Lio meant to respond?
Lio didn’t have a plan for this situation—but he knew he needed to come up with one. He was usually good at thinking on his feet, responding quickly, but something about Kray made his blood boil in a way that he just couldn’t think through all this rationally and just lay out a game plan. All that he could do was stew on it and wait , try to think what the best thing to do next was. It felt torturous to not be able to just spring into action against him. He didn’t even know what the shape of the rest of this . . . game looked like, at this point.
He honestly didn’t even know what to expect out of the situation, he made the donation as a relatively cautious next step, but the longer went on without any retaliation, he wondered exactly how that step had been received.
Finally, he thought, Kray had made his play. It was only a few days later, but it felt like eons, in this tense match. The buzzer rang, and Lio’s relief was palpable. Whatever happened next, it was something he could respond to it.
Only when Lio went to answer the door—it wasn’t a courier or the postman or anyone Kray had sent at all. It was two goons leaning against the door frame and looming in as he answered the door.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?” Lio hissed, grabbing each of them by the arm and dragging them through the foyer, into his apartment. He bolted the door shut and peered cautiously outside through the blinds, checking to see if there were any cars he hadn’t noticed before. He was sure Kray was watching him, somehow .
“Jeeze, boss, thought you might be happy to see us,” Gueira huffed, exaggeratedly, as if he was actually offended at Lio’s greeting.
“We haven’t heard from you in a while,” Meis adds, more seriously. “We were concerned.”
“Well I’m fine. You both know you can’t just show up like this.” That didn’t seem to relieve their concerns any, judging by their shared expression.
“Someone on your tail?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.” Because it was, he should keep his mouth shut, though. He’d only put them in more danger if they knew too much about this situation. Both of them had been known to act impulsively--more than once on Lio’s behalf. It had certainly saved his ass, but it had nearly put the two of them in hot water. Lio didn’t know if he could ever repay the favor, but keeping them safe was one way to ebb at that debt.
Gueira plopped down on the barely used couch in Lio’s living room, making himself comfortable and peering in the direction of the monitors in the corner. There was a video game tournament in one corner, Lio’s mostly abandoned and lukewarm lunch of some cup noodles and a beer were sitting on the desk next to the keyboard.
“How long have you been holed up?” Meis asked, because he knew Lio and wasn’t afraid to have the hard conversations with him.
“It’s--”
“ Boss ,” Gueira cut him off, a warning. Permission to tell the truth.
Lio didn’t usually feel self-conscious in front of them, with them. For anything. They called themselves his Generals for a reason--they were unfailing loyal, even if Lio didn’t really know what he had done to deserve that in the first place. They were his best friends, and had seen him in far worse states than this.
This was different, though. They didn’t know what ( who ) he had done.
“This is about that Foresight business isn’t it?” Gueira asked, before the silence could hang between them much longer. Of course he had told them he was looking into Foresight’s financials a while ago, before things had gotten more . . . tangled up. He hadn’t ever told them about his plan to break into Foresight’s apartment though, it had been too risky. They couldn’t know anything about it, they had only known that if he didn’t make his check in there were procedures to follow. But he had made the check-in the next morning, and they hadn’t asked questions. Business as usual.
“Yes,” Lio admitted, nervously, going for the lukewarm beer on his desk, ignoring Meis’ look, “I made some interesting ground on it.”
“And?”
“I found an in. All you need to know is that it's dangerous, but I’m taking care of it,” He tried to summon up some of the bravado and confidence that usually made them pretty happy that he wasn’t in too far over his head, but he wasn’t sure they were buying it.
“I don’t know if being worried that he knows where you live and has you under surveillance is ‘taking care of it,’” Meis pointed out, and Gueira made an affirmative expression on his face, conceding that his partner had a point there.
“It’s--”
“Boss, I swear, if you say it’s complicated--”
“Well, it is ,” Lio huffed, cutting Gueira off in turn. “You two shoudl be less worried about me and more worried about yourselves.”
“He’s made you, hasn’t he?” Meis asked.
Gueira’s eyes narrowed at the suggestion and he leaned forward, like he was about to spring up and into action, “You shouldn’t be here at all. We have safe houses.”
Lio didn’t waste time trying to deny it, he just made a noise of frustration, pushed his hands back through his hair. They were too damn perceptive, he didn’t want them to know what he had really been doing.
“I’m not going to a safe house,” He said, trying to sound measured and calm so they wouldn’t freak out anymore. Gueira still looked like he was about ready to drag Lio bodily somewhere else if he needed to. “I’m not in any dangerI have leverage. He’s not going to retaliate against me as long as I do.”
“You made contact and didn’t tell us? ” Meis hissed, and that he was upset like this too was making Lio’s nerves even more frazzled.
“Why do you think I had that check-in set up? You two knew I was looking into him.” If they wanted to lead him down on a guilt trip, Lio could spit right back.
“That was weeks ago! You should have clued us in, we could have been helping you take this bastard down!”
“Can you two stop ?” LIo asked forcefully, voice just a hair above too loud for the tiny apartment. “I can take care of myself, and you both damn well know that.”
“You’re right.” Meis’ voice was softer, this time, just a little. Lio knew he had gotten his point across to at least one of them. Gueira didn’t look as convinced, but he finally crossed his arms and huffed out a muffled agreement.
“I’m glad we’re all in agreement,” Lio said, voice measured. There was a moment of tension between them. It wouldn’t take much for Lio to just throw them out, he was on high enough alert anyway, without having to worry about them or what they would think of him if they found out what exactly had been going on.
“Anyway, is it safe to order take out?” Gueira asked, after a heavy moment. LIke that, the tension was cut, as Gueira peered over disapprovingly at Lio’s abandoned noodles. As if he was one to judge.
Lio rolled his eyes, “If it's the Chinese place down the street. Sesame chicken. Egg rolls. And crab rangoon.”
“Disgusting,” Meis sneered, already pulling out his phone out and scrolling to the number saved in his phone.
“I think you mean delicious,” Lio corrected, walking over to the fridge and grabbing a beer or each of them, “It’s a roulette day,” he added, handing a different one to each of them before sinking into his desk chair to look at something on the screen.
“Damn, you must be hard up if you’re not even making beer runs,” Gueira said with a whistle, ignoring Meis shushing him while he ordered for them.
“Do you want to go get beer for me?” Lio asked sweetly, giving him a look over his shoulder while he checked on some of the alerts he had set up on Kray. As far as he could tell, the bastard still hadn’t checked his bank account. Utterly ridiculous.
“Fuck, no. I’m not your lackey.” Gueira propped his feet on the coffee table, boots and all, as if to prove a point.
“I mean, you kind of are sometimes ,” Lio said, as if that usually included Gueira doing his grocery shopping. Lio wasn’t sure that Gueira had been in a grocery store, maybe ever. If he had to bet, Meis did all the shopping, if they weren’t living off of pizza from the place on the first floor of their building.
“Not the point. Anyways, if you won’t talk to us about Foresight--” Gueira waved off Lio’s sharp look, “What else have you been up to? We’re getting bored, there’s gotta be something interesting going on in your life if you’re ignoring us. New pet project? New person? Spill.”
“Yeah. It’s not like you to cut us out like that. We were worried,” Meis said, depositing himself on the couch next to Gueira now that the takeout had been ordered.
“I’m sorry. I have been . . . wrapped up, I guess,” Lio said, and he might feel a little bad about it. But he was trying to protect them.
“It’s fine. But Gueira’s gotta be right, spill.”
“There was someone,” Lio admits, cautiously, because they know him well enough to know that, clearly. “We saw each other a few times.”
“And?”
“And what? I’m not giving you details about my sex life.”
“Oh so you had sex? Boss, how scandalous.”
“Shove it,” Lio muttered, ignoring the way his cheeks flushed a little at the teasing, taking a sip of the beer to hide it.
“Did you use protection? Meis, Meis, do we need to give him the talk? Guess it's better late than never.” Gueira seemed very amused with himself, hitting his boyfriend in the arm for emphasis as he teased.
Lio would be more bothered by it if he didn’t know Gueira, or if they hadn’t all fucked once upon a time. But that had certainly been a while ago. For a moment, it had seemed like they might have fallen into something, the three of them. But Lio extricated himself from it before it could really cement. He left the city with some bullshit excuse, and when he came back, they fell back into an easy enough friendship, but nothing else.
“Can you make him stop?” Lio complained, looking pointedly at Meis, who simply put a hand over Gueira’s mouth, like that would do anything but encourage him.
“I think what my immature half means to say, is ‘congratulations’ on finally getting laid again.”
“Oh fuck off, not you too, it hadn’t been that long,” Lio said with a huff, and a dour look. Meis shrugged it off, not at all bothered.
“I just call it like I see it. He’s right, though.”
“Why did I let you two come over here? Why didn’t I kick you out?” Lio muttered, sitting up like a lightning bolt when one of the notifications on his phone pinged.
“Oh, is it more serious than just a fuck?” Gueira teased, craning over as if he could actually get a look at Lio’s phone from across the room while he checked the messages. Lio just glared while he typed in the passcode, checking the alert. It was just a security notice, a false alarm, really. Someone was at Kray’s place--Lio couldn’t make out if it was anyone familiar in the camera without studying it more closely, and he didn’t want to risk that with Gueira and Meis here. He just sat the phone back down, irritated.
When was Kray going to make his next move?
“It’s not,” Lio insisted, but they were like rabid dogs, once they thought they had the scent of blood in the air.
“Hmm, friends with benefits?” Meis wasn’t going to let Gueira have all the fun, at least he wasn’t teasing as outright as Gueira was. They were both impossible though.
“No it’s . . .” Lio trailed off, he didn’t want to talk about it, but they would keep pestering him about it all day if he didn’t give them something . They were his friends and they had been worried, and it’s not like they didn’t deserve to know what was going on in his life, even if he couldn’t give them all the sordid details.
“Complicated?” Their voices came out in an eerie unison. God, it was weird when they did that.
“Yes,” Lio said, rolling his eyes, “I don’t know how to talk about it. If I did, I’d tell you.”
“How do you not know how to talk about it? Jeeze, boss, how complicated can it be? Is he married or something?”
“What? No. I wouldn’t do that!” Lio snapped, crossing his arms as Meis gave him a look indicating disbelief, “Fine, it was once and that was messy and I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to do it again.”
“Alright, so then what’s so complicated about this if he’s not married?”
Lio paused, knowing that he really needed to be careful here. Meis and Gueira, for all that they could be over eager, actually were quite bright. If he let too much slip they would figure it out--if they hadn’t already. This was another minefield to walk through--as if he hadn’t been dealing with those enough lately.
“I guess it comes down to he’s bad at conversation,” Lio said, thinking of how quick Kray was to berate him. That certainly was an understatement to say the least.
“Are you really worried about his conversation skills?”
“I mean, it’s definitely not how he is in bed that’s the problem.” If they wanted to hear the salacious details, they weren’t going to get them, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t talk about things in the abstract as long as they didn’t get too curious.
“Yeah?”
“I mean, he’s got a big dick. Like, really big. And he knows how to use it,” Lio admitted, almost fondly. It was hard to take the sex out of the context of everything else--but it definitely was good on its own. That was why it was so complicated, though.
The sex was good, Lio had to admit that much. It was glaringly obvious that he begrudgingly enjoyed it, by now. As much as he wanted to admit that he didn’t, there was no way to avoid it. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here sitting on the edge of his seat, waiting for Kray’s next move.
There were two layers to this whole thing--the sex, and taking down Kray without getting his own ass into even deeper shit. He probably had enough to get him, but the question was how much more could he get? How much deeper could he dig Kray’s grave, without digging one for himself right next to it?
And how much could he just stop and enjoy the perks of Kray thinking that Lio was going to buy into whatever it was that he was planning, along the way? Lio glanced at the leather jacket. Kray was definitely learning more of his tastes, Lio couldn’t deny that there were more perks than just the sex, if Kray kept that up.
“Earth to boss. Dick that good that you’re distracted even now? Damn.”
“Oh shut up,” Lio looked away, Gueira was too smug--he hadn’t been spaced out that much. He wondered if maybe he had played his hand a little too far, here, too “When’s the food getting here, anyway?”
Meis looked down at his phone, checking the time, “Should be the next little bit. They said they were backed up.”
“Fuck, I want my rangoons.” Lio finished off his beer, looking down at it sadly. It was one of the last good ones that he had. He glanced back at his monitor, just to check, and went to go back over to the fridge, surveying it’s sad contents to pluck out a pitiful beer. “You two good?”
“I’m running low!” Gueira called back, as Meis replied that he was set. Lio picked out another beer, and gave Gueira his least favorite of the two on his way back. Usually, Lio would be self-sacrificing here, but Gueira was being nosey and he deserved it.
“Hey, you’re not going anywhere,” Gueira said, pulling Lio down onto the couch before he could walk back over to the computer. It wasn’t like it was hard--even though Gueira was just as lanky as he was. He was deceptively strong though, and also had Meis’ help, as they manhandled him until he was sitting between the two of them.
“You’re lucky I hadn’t opened my beer yet,” Lio said, pretending to glare as he swung his legs over Meis and leaned back against Gueira.
Gueira just rolled his eyes, “Uh huh. What are you gonna do, kick us out because you spilled a little beer?”
“Maybe. You’ve done nothing but harass me since you got here, you might deserve it.”
“And you’ve left us in the dark for ages. Just deserts, boss.”
“Fine. So we’re even, now.”
“Even,” Meis and Gueira both agreed. Lio relaxed a little, a bit of tension he hadn’t even been conscious of carrying bleeding out of his shoulders. He had felt a little bad. He didn’t want to keep things from them--just. He wanted them to be safe, and if they knew everything, they would get into shit, too. Maybe not exactly how Lio was, but probably worse.
“I’m sorry,” Lio finally said, a long moment later, “I should have said something. I didn’t know you two were worried.”
“Just don’t go dark on us again, yeah?” Gueira wrapped an arm around him, for good measure.
“Even if you don’t wanna tell us everything, we still wanna hear from you,” Meis added.
“I’ll try not to do it again.” It was hard to make promises--he knew he could get caught up in things. But he could do a better job of it.
“Look, don’t worry about it too much. We just wanted to remind you that we’re here for you, and we care about what’s going on with you.”
“I appreciate it.” And Lio really did--but it almost made him feel more guilty about everything--if it weren’t for the comforting warmth of the both of them, he might dwell on that more. But they had been here for him, through a lot, even when he made dumb mistakes. Sure, they might never let him live them down, but it never seemed to drive them away, or even chip at this unflinching loyalty that he didn’t know if he deserved.
Cutting through the moment, and piercing the silence--the doorbell rang. Lio’s heart rate spiked, jumping for a moment before he remembered their food was on the way. Still. He had just gotten comfortable. Meis started to get up to go for it, but Lio peeled himself away, “I’ve got it.”
Lio knew, logically, what to expect at the door. But as he grabbed his wallet and walked to the door, his heart was racing--what if it was something from Kray, another gift. What would he do--how would he hide it or explain it--it wasn’t like the boxes were subtle enough to write it off as any old internet package. They had all had that stupidly precise and gaudy elegance of Foresight’s style about them.
Yet, when he answered the door, he was almost disappointed when it was just the delivery person, from the Chinese place down the street. Lio smiled and made small talk and paid the man and tipped generously, but his stomach was still flipping, strangely. Was he really disappointed? Was he that desperate?
Lio took a deep breath before he came back inside with the food. He couldn’t do this--he owed Meis and Gueira more than his split attention for the rest of the evening. They were going to eat Chinese and get drunk, maybe play some video games or watch some C-level horror movie on the internet. He was going to banish Kray Foresight from his mind for the rest of the evening, and he was going to do normal things .
“Rangoon is here!” Lio said, hoping that the eagerness in his voice wasn’t too forced as he plopped the bag onto the coffee table in front of them.
“I can’t believe you eat that shit.”
“Shut up Meis, it’s delicious.” Lio said, already looking for the cartoon of them so he could get one before they both quit lying to themselves and ate them all.
“Uh huh.”
“Gueira, put something on the tv,” Lio said, shoving the remote at him before he finished lining up the cartons of food and distributing them in front of their respective owners.
“Anything you say, boss,” Not acting the least bit put upon, even though he probably could get away with it right now.
“Gueira, I swear to god if you put--”
“Sharknado it is,” He said, with a grin that looked rather sharkish itself.
“I don’t think I have enough alcohol if this is where the day is going,” Lio said, shoving a crab rangoon in his mouth.
“I told you we should’ve brought some weed,” Meis said, reaching over Lio to try to grab the remote, “C’mon Gueira.”
“Hey--no! Lio told me to put something on, I get to pick then. Thems the rules!” Gueira protested, reaching out opposite them as he navigated over to the ‘Favorites’ section to put his film of choice on.
It wasn’t like Lio, or Meis, was actually mad. It was part of the routine, part of settling back into familiar territory. A reassurance, that everything was still fine and normal and that nothing had actually changed between them.
It was easier than Lio expected, to settle back in between them, and relax. The utter absurdity of the movie (and the delicious taste of unfrozen food), was enough to distract him from any other thoughts nagging at the edge of his brain. There was another movie--a trip to the corner store for some more beer, and then another movie or three.
But then--
“We should head back home,” Meis finally said to Gueira, as he stood up. He didn’t look guilty until he caught the slip of Lio’s face, and then he looked hesitant, to move away.
Lio just smiled, trying for fondness, “Go on. I have shit to do in the morning, anyway and you two sleep all day.”
“Oh, fuck off, do not.” Gueira muttered--a little more drunk than Lio or Meis, but none of them were that far gone, really. It had just been a warm, comfortable buzz.
“Yes, we do,” Meis said, putting an arm around Gueira, for good measure, as he pulled him up, “And we’re not gonna get in Lio’s way, so we’re going home.”
“Alright, alright,” If he had been that reluctant in the first place, it hardly showed. Gueira went to the door with Meis easily enough. “But you’re gonna actually talk to us, no more of this in the dark bullshit, right?”
“Right,” Lio said, smiling. “You two go on.”
“We’ll talk to you soon,” Meis said, on the way out, giving Lio a meaningful look.
“You will. Don’t worry about me.” Lio said, ushering them out. He watched them make it out to the side walk. When they got into an uber, he finally went back in and locked the door behind them.
Cartons of leftovers were strewn on the coffee table in between empty bottles and cans. Credits still rolling from the last movie.
His apartment didn’t usually feel this big.
But he didn’t want to dwell on that--he closed the boxes and put what was left in the fridge, grabbing the rest to dump in the trash. He cleaned up as much as he could, and started towards the bedroom.
He paused for a moment at his computer, and then finally sat down. Might as well check on things before he went to bed, always a chance that Kray could have gotten up to something while he was distracted.