Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Virgil swallows, his heart thudding in his ears. His hands are freezing, fingers slightly trembling.

It's fine. He tells himself that over and over. It's fine. Today is going to be fine. He's just telling his friends (and his boyfriend, thank god it's his boyfriend, he doesn't think he could pretend if it was Thomas's) that he's gonna go by a different name. That he's non binary. 

It's not wrong. He is. He's fine with he/him, but they/them has a nice ring to it, too. That's not the issue.

The issue is that it all feels like a lie.

Because Thomas is not non binary. Thomas is just a guy. ("Hit him with your car!" A voice brightly suggests in the back of Virgil's mind. Virgil ignores it.) Virgil's the one who's non binary. Virgil's the one who's different.

Virgil's the one who's, well, not Thomas.

"You okay?" Roman asks, startling Virgil from his thoughts. He nods on autopilot, his thoughts churning a thousand miles a minute. Roman's early, cozying up to him in the coffee shop. Virgil picked a public place in hopes that if it went south, the public nature of the meeting would dissuade anybody from being too loud or obstreperous. 

"You don't look okay," Roman murmurs in Virgil's ear. "What's wrong, Thomas?" The sound of his former host's name makes him want to cringe. It's always been like nails grating on a chalkboard to hear that name, the body's name, the old host's name, but especially now. Especially now that Virgil's taken over their life properly.

"Nothing," he forces out. "I just- you'll see. I wanna wait until everyone's here." Roman doesn't look particularly satisfied with that answer, but nods, anyway.

It isn't long before the others show up, Remus and Janus holding hands as always. Patton rushes up eagerly, pushing heart-shaped glasses up his nose.

"Hi!" He chirps, and Virgil has to smile at his overly bubbly friend. Patton's great. He's good at calming Virgil down through his panic attacks, even if he himself is terrified of spiders, Virgil's favorite creature (besides cats, of course). 

"Hello, I apologize for my tardiness," Logan murmurs, trailing behind. Virgil smiles at him, trying to tamp down the anxious surge of nausea painting his throat. It will be fine. All of his friends are fine with the LGBTQIA+ community at least. He's not about to blurt out the system thing. Not now. Everyone needs to be on board with that. Or at least a majority. Good majority. Right? Virgil doesn't even want to explain. Doesn't know how to explain. He supposes he could ask their therapist. Maybe. At some point.

"So what is it, darling?" Roman asks, capturing Virgil's hand gently. Virgil swallows again. 

"Um-" He starts, his voice shaking. "I just- um- I'm- I'm nonbinary? And- and maybe- could you use Virgil for me? In- instead of Thomas?" A soft wave of encouragement from inside his mind keeps the words coming, keeps him blurting them out.

"Of course, sweetheart!" Patton says at once. "Thank you for telling us!"

"Agreed," Logan says. "Do you prefer different pronouns?"

"Uh," Virgil stalls, looking at Remus's brightly encouraging face. "I mean, he's fine, they/them is fine...I dunno, haven't really thought about any others."

"I can help you with neos if you want!" Remus exclaims. Janus nods in slightly more dignified agreement.

"It's a delight to meet you, Virgil," Roman says, kissing the tip of Virgil's nose. It's soft. It's accepting. It's wonderful, really.

So why does Virgil still feel like he's lying?

Chapter Text

Virgil doesn't know what he's doing.

The thing is, that kind of works? He's always been Thomas's protector. Always thought of himself as the one who would step in front of a speeding train for Thomas. He's even the one who took up public speaking in college, the class they were forced to take, because Thomas's voice kept dying out, and even though Virgil kept having panic attacks in the school bathroom, he could still do it.

And it's not like Thomas meant to hand over his job. That's what kind of stings most of all. It's not like he asked. Not like he encouraged Virgil down on one knee and tapped both shoulders with the Host Stick of Responsibility.

No, he just got tired. Tired and burnt out and worn out, like an old pair of sneakers. And Virgil found himself fronting more and more, found himself taking over in social situations more and more- not just with Roman, but all of their friends.

Until now.

And like, he's not totally out of his depth here, because he knows Thomas's friends. They're his friends, too, even if they don't know it. Roman's his boyfriend! His, because he's the one who was out when they met Roman, and he fell instantly for those soft brown eyes, and Thomas-

Thomas is sometimes too kind for his own good. So he let Virgil have this, have something for himself- he knows it's not just for himself, that they are parts of a whole, but he still feels like his own person, even if he does share a body. And a brain. Thomas let Virgil feel like maybe something could be good in his life.

And Roman is! Oh god, Roman is. Roman is incredible. He's sweet- so much so, Virgil feels like he's got a perpetual cavity, but he could never mind it, not from Roman. He's thoughtful. He pays attention (that kind of scares Virgil sometimes, but he knows how to deal with it for the most part. And besides, Roman knows he's got PTSD, so he can cover up some of it). He's smart, incredibly so, although he always downplays it. He's talented. So talented. Virgil thinks Roman could be a movie or Broadway superstar if he wanted to be.

"I told them," he tells his therapist, huddled in the chair across from her as usual. "That I wanted to go by Virgil. That I'm nonbinary." She smiles at him.

"How did it go?" She questions. Virgil nibbles on a thumbnail.

"Well," he acknowledges. "It went well. I just-" He hesitates. She already knows how he feels, but he stumbles through the explanation, anyway. How it feels like he's stepping into the shoes of someone dead, even though Thomas is still around. How it feels like shrugging on someone's life, like some weird kind of doppelganger, how he feels like he's betraying everyone's trust by not admitting who he is and what's going on. 

"It isn't a lie if the other person doesn't deserve the information to begin with," his therapist tells him. "They are not owed your life story just because they are your friends, Virgil. You can tell them, if you and the others agree, but you aren't lying because you haven't felt safe enough to disclose it yet."

"I know," Virgil says. Then he sighs. "Well. I know that logically. Emotionally, it feels like I'm the biggest liar to ever lie."

"Have you been working with the others?" His therapist asks. "On this? Do you know what the others have to say?"

"Um-" Virgil starts to say, before he blinks. He feels like he's floating, all of a sudden, his head starting to ache, as he struggles to focus on the slightly concerned features of his therapist. "Sorry-" Virgil manages to mumble, before he finds himself summarily shoved into the passenger seat.

Remy doesn't like this.

Oh, he's chill with their therapist, he doesn't mind her. But he doesn't like all of this- this changing identities bullshit Virgil's got going on. Not that he wants to tell Virgil that, not in so many words, but he really didn't mean to get so close, didn't mean to pay attention to what was going on outside their head.

And suddenly, the world stutters and he's there, uncurling from Virgil's naturally cramped position and stretching out his legs, his fingers itching for his sunglasses. Virgil left them at home, though. Fuck.

"Hey," he greets their therapist, giving her a two-fingered salute. She nods in greeting, used to this by now. "It's Remy," he says. She's earned that much, at least. She's earned most of the system's trust. Maybe not everyone's, but that's okay. That's not a requirement, right?

"I take it you feel particularly strongly about this?" She asks, a little archly. Remy grins thinly, showing his teeth.

"You could say that," he says, with a shrug. He can still feel Virgil there, but it's like he's been displaced. He's not there anymore, not really. Could you take a message? Remy thinks, and tries not to laugh. Not the time. "I just- What was wrong with how it was working before? Virgil still wasn't Thomas. Still came out a lot. Why do we have to change it up? That- that's how we get caught." He frowns, refusing to give into Virgil's impulse to bite their bottom lip.

"How so?" His therapist asks. She's got her notebook in front of her, flipped open to a new page. She's old school, he guesses. Likes taking notes by hand. He's tried to read them a few times. It's annoying she uses shorthand that he doesn't understand.

"If we start going by Virgil," Remy begins, fumbling a tangle out of their pocket and fidgeting with it absently as he talks. "Who's to say that we don't slip up in other ways? Start using 'we' in public, start fucking up pronouns, that kind of thing. Or what if- I mean, I don't want to put it in Virgil's head, not when he's still kind of around, but like- what if he doesn't stay host? What if Thomas comes back? What if someone else becomes host? Are we gonna change names or pronouns again? Would it be better to just tell our friends the truth? What if they don't believe us? What if they think we're making it up? What if they tell someone else we don't want to know?"

"That's a lot of what ifs," she observes. Remy bites down the urge to scowl at her, because he hates that she's right. "Do you think it would be better to tell your friends about your DID?"

For a second, his head is loud, a full-fledged cacophony of panic that makes Remy's heart race uncomfortably fast and his eyes widen.

"No," he blurts out. "I mean- maybe Roman, but- but that's it. Just-" Remy takes a deep breath, then another, slouching down in the chair again and fiddling with the tangle. "I mean, it'd be nice not to have to pretend I'm Virge when I'm around him," he reluctantly admits. It doesn't hurt that he's in an in-system relationship with Emile, one of their caregivers.

"It can be very rewarding to have a space where you're able to be yourself," she acknowledges. "Is that something all of you are interested in doing soon?"

"Maybe," Remy says, prodded by Virgil more than anything. "But just Roman. Not- not the rest of our friends."

"Okay," his therapist says. The rest of the session passes without incident, and Remy finds himself the one still fronting to go home, much to his displeasure.

Actually-

Remy's smile grows, more of a smirk than anything. Starbucks is on the way home.

And after a session like that? He thinks he more than deserves some coffee. 

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Remy decides, fingers tapping on the steering wheel in a restless pattern, that he wants to go through the drive-through. It's not that he particularly minds going inside, but it looks crowded even from here, and he doesn't want anyone else to be triggered out, not when he still hasn't had his coffee. Virgil's usual order is a caramel ribbon crunch frappuccino (or the new apple crisp one, now that fall has rolled around), but Remy immediately orders an iced vanilla latte. He knows that technically, he could make it at home, but also, no he can't, because everyone else won't let him. Virgil puts in enough creamer to make the flavor of coffee but a distant memory, and it's so sweet, Remy can't really drink it. At least with his Starbucks order, the vanilla is supposed to be there.