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Still Trying to Survive

Summary:

Virgil's just trying to adjust to living as himself. There are bumps in the road, but hey, his life has never been easy.

Chapter 1: Meeting the Parents

Chapter Text

They had discussed it numerous times, on many different occasions, and despite how nervous Virgil was, he wanted to meet Logan’s family. Logan had warned Virgil of the potential judgement from his family, but Virgil felt like he should meet Logan’s family, at least his parents, before the wedding.

 

And that was how they had gotten into this situation, with Virgil wearing a purple flannel open and a black shirt underneath and black skinny jeans, as well as a new-and-improved patchwork hoodie, with both his stormcloud and black cat pins attached just above his heart, and Logan in a generic black shirt and blue denim jeans. Logan seemed to be almost as nervous as Virgil was, which would’ve been a shock if Virgil hadn’t heard some of the things Logan’s parents had said about certain types of people.

 

Logan knocked on the door of the admittedly very large house, which did nothing to quell Virgil’s worries, and when the door swung open Virgil was met with a girl of about sixteen who had the same bright blue eyes as Logan’s and dirty blond hair that reached her shoulders. She almost seemed to smile at Virgil slightly before looking at Logan.

“In. She’s been going mental all morning,” the girl almost grunted, before walking off and disappearing up a staircase nearby. Logan sighed, before leading Virgil into the house.

“That was Olivia, one of my sisters, and the person she was referring to is-”

“Logan! You’re here!” As Logan and Virgil arrived into a dining room larger than the entirety of Virgil’s apartment - not that he still lived there now as he and Logan had moved into a larger place together not too long before wedding plans got underway, but he could still remember the size of that old apartment - a voice called out, and Virgil saw an older woman with long, flowing black hair and angular green eyes laying copious amounts of food onto the large, circular dining room table. “And you’ve brought your partner. Vincent, wasn’t it?” Virgil could see Logan tense up ever so slightly, so he decided to take the initiative, ignoring his anxiety screaming at him.

“Virgil, actually,” Virgil began, moving towards Logan’s mother and holding out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” He had lowered his voice when he spoke, out of habit from when he used to use that method to try and pass before he started hormones, and Virgil was positive that Logan would notice the subtle voice change, but would hopefully ignore it. Logan’s mother took his hand and shook it once before letting go, turning back to the table.

“Well, lunch is nearly ready, so we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other. Logan’s always been such a secretive boy, he’s barely told us anything about you.” She smiled at Virgil before heading back to presumably the kitchen, and Virgil let out the breath he didn’t even realise he’d been holding.

 

When everyone was sat at the table, Virgil noted that Logan had eight siblings of varying ages, with him being one of the oldest, the youngest maybe six years old at the most, and they all looked some degrees of related, between eye shape and colour to nose shape, Virgil even noticed that one of the younger kids had a similarly angular jaw to Logan’s. He was in awe, he had always wanted a sibling, but with his parents splitting up and his dad being content on his own, Virgil had never gotten that wish.

“So, Virgil,” Logan’s dad, a rather large man with greying blond hair and rounded, blue eyes framed by a pair of thin reading glasses, began speaking after everyone had eaten, and this spiked Virgil’s nerves immediately. “What do you and your parents do for a living?” This question, Logan had warned Virgil about this question. Logan’s dad was the CEO of the very hospital that Virgil went to for his top surgery, and was therefore somewhat judgmental of people working in low positions. Virgil cleared his throat slightly and sat up straight, remembering that he had no reason to slouch forwards anymore.

“I’m currently working in a library, but I’m training to be a qualified college professor,” Virgil explained, leaving out that he wanted to teach astronomy and musical classes. “And my dad is a biochemical engineer.”

“Fascinating. What about your mother?” Virgil’s jaw clenched instinctively at hearing that, and this was when Logan jumped in, obviously tense himself.

“That’s a very sensitive subject,” Logan began before Virgil put a hand against his knee under the table.

“I didn’t get to ask last time I saw her, and I doubt she’ll be coming back any time soon.” His tone was harsher than he meant it to be, but he was also getting phantom pains in his cheek from where he had been slammed into the ground only a few short years ago. However, his harshness seemed to at least somewhat get the message across to Logan’s parents, as neither pressed him further on the subject.

“Any siblings, Virgil? Surely your parents wanted a little girl as well,” Logan’s mother decided to divert the conversation, unaware of how equally uncomfortable this made Virgil. Virgil didn’t even think before he spoke, although he wished he did if he could go back in time.

“That’s all my mother wanted, and that’s why I’m an only child.” The room fell eerily silent, and as Virgil realised what he said, his eyes widened and he clamped a hand over his mouth, feeling the rush of fear that he hadn’t felt since coming out to Logan. Speaking of, Logan was also frozen in fear, looking between Virgil and his parents and unsure of the entire situation. The person who broke the silence, however, was Olivia, who was sat between Logan’s parents.

“You’re trans? Nice, so am I.” Virgil slowly lowered his hand as Olivia stood up and took her plate to the kitchen, while Logan’s mother spun around in her chair, anger radiating off of her.

“Oliver we have talked about this-”

“Mom, she’s going by Olivia, please,” one of Logan’s older brothers cut her off, before standing up himself and taking a few different plates to the kitchen.

 

The situation was luckily defused by Logan and both of his older brothers explaining, for what seemed to be not the first time, that Olivia was a girl and there was nothing wrong with that, and also including how Virgil was a trans male, to their mother, and her anger calmed down. However, neither she nor Logan’s father said another word to Virgil, not that Virgil minded as he had a long conversation with Olivia about how far her transition had come along so far, and how his transition journey had been.

 

It was about an hour or so later when they left, feeling extremely unwelcomed by Logan’s parents despite all of Logan’s siblings being very open and accepting, but Virgil figured that, much like with his mother, some people’s opinions wouldn’t be changed, but at least they didn’t seem physically abusive. Virgil had survived, and that was what mattered, and he had even found a cool future sister-in-law.

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