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English
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Part 10 of Labeled , Part 2 of Sometimes Labels Shift
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2020-02-21
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1/1
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Five Times Virgil Almost Called His Dads 'Dad' and One Time He Did

Summary:

There isn’t really a summary needed here is there?

This one destroyed me while I wrote it and then again when I edited it. Suffer with me.

Work Text:

1.

“Fuck,” Virgil hissed when the textbook landed on his foot.

“Language,” Patton reminded chipperly.

Virgil rolled his eyes, knowing Patton wasn’t actually mad at him. He said, “Sorry d-” and then promptly chocked on his own tongue, because he had meant it in a slightly sarcastic way, like how someone might say it to a classmate who’d said something like that. ‘Sorry dad,’ with a roll of the eyes that would get an eyeroll and a huff in return. But like, er, probably not a think to say to Patton. He knew Patton wasn’t his dad, and he knew Patton didn’t want to be his dad, but he’d probably take it the wrong way, and Virgil would have to sit through the mortifying ‘You’re a good kid and we care about you. We do! But this is just a temporary thing…’ conversation again.

Patton clearly completely misinterpreted the chocking sound as him panicking because he was there immediately. “I’m not angry sweetie. I know it’s habit. It’s not a real problem. I’m mostly just being silly.”

“Uh,” Virgil coughed. “It’s cool. We’re cool. Um. I know I need to learn to control the cussing a bit more, so, um, it’s fine.”

Patton frowned, always too perceptive and always catching him in everything. He met Virgil’s eyes for a long moment. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I can change the way I ask you not to curse if that would work better. Or just not mention it at all.”

Man, Patton was just a good guy, wasn’t he? Virgil’d appreciate it if this wasn’t all just because he’d almost had a humiliating slip of the tongue. “No,” he said. “I wasn’t scared or anything like that. I’m really, actually, good.”

Patton studied him but seemed to accept that he was telling the truth, because he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “You’re foot’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Virgil replied. “I’m fine.” He gave Patton a smile. “Thanks.”

 

2. 

Despite the fact that he knew very well they were there, that they’d driven him here an hour before the concert started, that they’d said they were going to go get seats before most people even arrived, that he’d seen them from the stage, he still managed to be shocked when Patton all but tackled him after his band concert.

“You did so good sweetie!” Patton gushed when he pulled back from the hug. “I’m so proud of you. Wasn’t he great Logan?”

“He was,” Logan agreed with an easy smile. “His ability to create tolerable sounds with a reed instrument is still quite the impressive feat. One which I could not accomplish.”

Virgil felt himself blushing and ducked his head. “Don’t. You can’t. I. There were like 60 of us. You couldn’t have even heard me.”

Patton chucked and lunged forward to trap him in another hug, rocking from side to side and forcing Virgil’s body to follow the movement. “You did so good!” he crooned.

“No!”

“Yes!”

Virgil groaned and squirmed out of his arms. “You’re embarrassing.” Patton just laughed, unrepentant.

“Hi Virgil,” a voice said.

“Oh,” he said turning to her. “Hey, Miss Ellington.” Miss Ellington was the band teacher. He liked her despite the fact that she’d always been a bit pushy with Virgil. She always used to take him aside and needle him to practice at home (which had been impossible before Patton and Logan) and would frown a bit when it was obvious he hadn’t. Yet, at the same time, that frown hadn’t been like his math teacher’s frown. Instead, it had been more like she was disappointed he wasn’t meeting her higher expectations, not because he was meeting her low ones.

Upon his sudden rehoming and the discussion that had happened with his teachers and the administration, she’d backed off the pushiness by a lot. He… wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but she had let him try out for the audition only bands over winter break when he’d show marked improvement even though she usually only allowed people to switch bands between school years.

Virgil turned to Patton and Logan. “This is Miss Ellington, the band teacher. Miss Ellington, these are my…” and with the feeling like someone had reached into him and wrapped a hand around his stomach, he suddenly knew exactly the word he wanted to say. Here they were at his band concert, and it was the first time any adult had bothered to come to something like this for him. All around them were actual parents meeting up with their actual children, chatting with them and hugging them like parents were known to do. It set something burning in his chest that he did his best to shove down as far as possible, “guardians,” he continued. “Patton and Logan.”

The adults took care of the exchange of pleasantries over his head after the introduction which was good because Virgil’s head had been sent spinning. He couldn’t stop thinking about it while Patton and Logan finished talking to Miss Ellington, while they struggled through the throng of people to get out of the school, while the ate ice cream to celebrate, or while he stared at the ceiling after falling into bed later that night.

3.

“Hey Logan,” Virgil called quietly. It was probably okay for him to interrupt the man since his office door was open, but it still felt weird to do so.

“Hmmm?” he replied looking up from whatever he was doing at his desk. “What do you need?”

“Sorry to bother you,” Virgil said. “I was just wondering if you could tell me, um, where are the Band-aids?”

Logan’s full attention snapped to him immediately. He was already on his feet and rounding the desk by the time he said, “You’re hurt?”.

“‘S just a scratch,” Virgil said. “I jammed my finger against the counter and kinda,” shredded was probably not the word he wanted to use to calm him about this…, “tore my nailbed. I tried to stop the bleeding with paper towels, but it’s not slowing down quick enough.”

“Let me see,” Logan prompted.

Virgil lifted the paper towel that he’d wrapped around the injury to show it to him. He grabbed Virgil’s wrist gently to take a look at the wound and tsked at it. “Band-Aids are in the downstairs bathroom,” he said and tugged softly at Virgil’s wrist to lead him in that direction.

“Oh, I can do it myself,” Virgil said.

Logan waved the suggestion away and continued to guide him into the bathroom and settled him on the toilet seat before rooting through the cabinet for a few moments. He sighed in what seemed to be resignation. Virgil quirked an eyebrow. “We apparently,” he said. “Have the option of Mickey Mouse or cat Band-Aids.” Virgil chocked out a laugh. “Or we could go raid Patton’s stash for medical gauze.

“Can I have both so I can make it look like the cats are eating Mickey?” Virgil asked.

Logan chuckled. “The cats don’t look like they’d eat anything honestly, but you can try.” He grabbed the boxes of Band-Aids as well as some antibiotic ointment. “Here,” he motioned for Virgil to give him his hand and completely removed the paper towel before running some water over it to wash away the blood and dabbing it dry. He spread on a dollop of the ointment and then glanced back up at Virgil. “How do you want the bandages positioned?”

“I was mostly joking,” Virgil said, but Logan just raised an eyebrow. “Put the mouse one on first like normal and we’ll position the cat one based on that.”

Logan did and then they did their best to place the cat one. It absolutely did not look like the cat was going to eat Mickey and it absolutely was going to fall off as soon Virgil tried to do anything with his hand, but he appreciated the attempt anyway.

Logan settled a hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Good?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Thanks-” and he thought about it for a moment because this had been a very ‘dad’ sort of thing to do, putting a funny Band-Aid on someone’s cut, but he ultimately decided against it, “Logan.”

 

 4.

Virgil drifted happily in and out of consciousness to the sound of some movie he didn’t care about in the background and the feeling of fingers running through his hair. Patton had coaxed him into laying his head in his lap a while ago and Logan had covered him up to the neck with a blanket at some point since then. Virgil hadn’t opened his eyes to check, but he imagined it was the purple one. Honestly, if Virgil had to vote for the best feeling in the world, this would be in the running.

“Is he asleep?” he heard Logan’s voice ask softly.

“I think so,” Patton replied, his finger still in Virgil’s hair. And Virgil wasn’t, at least not completely, but he wasn’t concerned with waking up enough to tell them that. He felt the couch shift as Logan got up.

“Here,” he said. “I’ll carry him to bed.” Virgil wondered if he should protest that, but it simply didn’t feel like he needed to care about it right now.

Arms came under him, one under his shoulders and one under his knees. He accidently made a soft noise as he was lifted and settled against a warm chest.

“Shh,” he heard Patton’s voice sooth. Fingers returned to his hair. “You’re fine.”

Okay. Virgil thought. He was shifted so his face was tucked against Logan’s neck and then he could feel them moving. He didn’t really remember the trip up the stairs, just barely coming to as he was lowered again. He’d already been in his pajamas and he guessed either Patton pulled down his sheets or Logan used his powers because he was put directly into bed and had the covers tucked around him a moment later. He felt a kiss on the forehead. Patton, he could tell by the lack of chalk smell that lingered constantly on Logan and the addition of the cinnamon body wash scent. Another kiss was pressed to his temple a moment latter by Logan this time.

“Goodnight sweetie,” Patton said softly before he heard them exit the room.

Thanks dads, Virgil thought as they left, and he drifted off into a true sleep.

5.

“Okay,” Emile said with a smile. “We’re pretty much done for the day. Is there anything else you want to talk about today?”

Virgil rubbed his fingers over his hoody sleeves. “If I ask you something,” he said, “you promise not to tell, right? Not Logan or Patton or even Remy?”

Emile scrutinized him from behind his glasses, “of course not, Virgil. What’s on your mind?”

“I just…”

Emile sat quietly waiting for him to get it together.

“So, they’re going to adopt me.”

Emile nodded with a small smile. “I’ve heard.”

“But what does that mean?” Virgil asked. “What does that change? Does that make them my…?” he trailed off, not ready to put the word into the air.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything or change anything if you don’t want it to. Or it could change a lot of things or some things. I’m sure both Patton and Logan would be happy with whatever you want to happen. You just need to talk to them and tell them what you want and what you are comfortable with. Communicating is key.”

“You’re pushing your communication agenda again,” Virgil accused.

“How dare I?” Emile responded dryly.

Virgil smirked, but then played with his hoody strings for a moment more. “I’ll think about it.”

 

 And 1. Again

Virgil stared at his bowl of rocky road ice cream for a few long moments. The adoption had just been officially finalized and in a pattern that he was getting fairly used to, Patton immediately called for celebratory ice cream with Logan just barely protested about the unhealthiness of the food.

He looked up at the two men sitting at the table with him. “So,” he said. “Does this mean I should call you guys dad now?”

“Of course not,” Logan replied. “You are not required to call either of us anything new because of this. We wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.” Patton nodded in agreement with a smile.

“Oh, okay,” Virgil said softly. He went back to eating the ice cream and kicking his feet a bit.

“Something wrong?” Patton asked.

Virgil shook his head, but he could feel Patton’s knowing eyes on him. He sighed, keeping his eyes on the bowel. “Just um, would you be mad if I ever did?” he asked.

“Oh,” Patton said softly, and part of Virgil wanted to take the question back immediately, run upstairs, and hide because why would they want to be his dads? But then, the other part reminded him that they’d literally just adopted him so… so maybe it wasn’t such a weird thing to want. He peaked up at Patton. “Oh sweetie, of course you can call us dad,” he said, and he looked a little teary eyed. “Whenever you want.”

“Now?” he asked, biting his lip.

“If you would like,” said Logan and with the confirmation that both of them would be okay with it, Virgil was able to steel his nerves.

“Hi dads.”

Patton jumped out of his chair to hug Virgil. “Oh, hi baby,” he cooed and pressed a kiss to the top of Virgil’s head.

Virgil glanced up at Logan. “Hello son,” he said.

Virgil, of course, then burst into tears which led to Patton having to explain to Logan that, no, he wasn’t upset, just overwhelmed. The ice cream was melted by the time they remembered it.