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Virgil walked downstairs into the living room and tilted his head to the side, listening intently to the sounds of the house around him. He could hear Patton humming softly from the kitchen as he worked on dinner and he could hear squeaks from a dog toy every few seconds, he imagined from Missy playing lazily with one of her toys. The rest of the house was quiet, so Logan was probably still focused on his research in his office. He likely would be until dinner was finished in a little over an hour.
Perfect.
Virgil let himself relax just a touch but remained on high alert. He’d been particularly anxious over the past week. It likely had something to do with returning to school next week after winter break. His nightmares had been more frequent, and he was exhausted. This of course only served to heighten his daytime anxieties. So, he’d decided to do something to alleviate at least some of his worry by doing what he did best: hiding things, sneaking around, and preparing for disaster scenarios.
Today, he was going to finally get rid of the money that had been burning a hole in his pocket for the last two weeks by finding it a good hiding place. A part of him felt a little bit bad about how he’d “found” the money, but he shook it off. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t have any income now that he wasn’t going out as Shadow Caster and Patton and Logan had nixed the idea of him getting a legitimate job since he was still struggling in school. Sure, so far he hadn’t needed any money living with them as Patton and Logan seemed inclined to feed him and buy him things he needed, but there was no way for Virgil to know when or how suddenly that would cut off. He wasn’t dumb enough not to have stashes of money around. Though he wasn’t… particularly proud of how he’d come by said stashes.
The current money in his pocket was mostly due to Logan. While classes weren’t back for the university either, Logan liked to go to campus a couple of times a week just to keep a semblance of a schedule, and he’d had to go to meetings this last week. He’d taken Virgil along and had let him sit in his office or wander the campus a bit. There wasn’t much to do since most people were gone and a lot of places were closed, but Logan always gave him money to grab lunch in the student union if they didn’t already have plans to meet with Patton to eat. Virgil had proceeded to… do something bad.
He’d tell Logan he’d gotten himself a cheeseburger and a soda, but in actuality he’d ordered a hamburger and gotten a cup of water. Then, he’d pocket the $.99 for the cheese and the $2.75 for the soda and give the rest of the money back to him. That, along with a bit of searching around campus for lose change had netted him $16.37 over the past two weeks. He wasn’t stupid enough to keep that much money on himself and invite questions about where he’d gotten it, so he currently had a 10 and a 5-dollar bill on him and was going to find a place to hide it. Beyond just knowing he was working towards his own security, getting the money out of the danger-of-discovery zone would hopefully take a bit off the top of his anxiety.
He’d found some great hiding places around Logan and Patton’s house: loose floorboards, a long space between the top of a wall and the roof in the basement (the regular basement, he wasn’t stupid enough to try to hide things in the other basement), and cracks in the backs of closets hidden by old boxes of things. He had not, however, had much of a chance to investigate the ground floor. Today, he’d set his eyes on the closet in the front hallway where Logan insisted on keeping all of the living room blankets and pillows. It was a high traffic area so there was every likelihood that he wouldn’t find a good enough place, but if he could, it would be great because it would be less suspicious.
That in mind, he opened the closet slowly and smashed himself into it, closing the door behind him. He wiggled the second to lowest shelf and it seemed solid, so he squirmed his way up onto it in the middle of a stack of blankets. He wormed his way back until his head hit the back of the closet and then he stuck his hand down against the bottom of the shelf. As he’d hoped, there was a little bit of space between the back of the shelf and the wall. He grabbed the two bills out of his hoodie pocket and carefully rolled them up together into a very skinny cylinder before wedging it down into the crack. It fit perfectly. Virgil ran his finger over the edge to make absolutely sure that money wouldn’t be visible. He felt nothing. Good.
He found that he did in fact feel a bit better now that the money was hidden away. He breathed a sigh of relief and inhaled the scent of Patton and Logan’s laundry detergent. It was a nice smell. Actually, all of this was nice, being crushed in the middle of a stack of soft, clean blankets in complete darkness. God, he was so tired. He pulled his legs in a little bit until his was in a fetal position and pushed the blankets away from his face a bit so he could breathe easier. It was nap time, he decided drowsily.
“Virgil!” Patton called for the third time, this time from the top of the stairs. He paused for a moment. “It’s time for dinner!” There was still no response. He knocked on the door to the boy’s bedroom and opened it a crack when there was no answer. No one was there.
Patton bit his lip. It was nothing, he was sure. Virgil had to be around here somewhere.
(Except it was very, very true that he didn’t have to be around here. A 15-year-old could easily slip out of the house unnoticed, especially one who had the power to disguise himself with shadows and who was known for sneaking into banks. And who was a newly placed foster child with a history of abuse. He was definitely in a group with a high risk of running away according to Logan.)
Logan.
Patton descended the steps much faster than usual and hustled towards Logan’s office. “Logan have you seen Virgil?” he asked in leu of a greeting as he burst into Logan’s office.
Logan gave him a startled blink. “Not for a few hours; I’ve been in here for quite some time.”
Patton started to wring his hands. “I can’t find him, Lo.”
Logan’s eyes flickered to Patton’s hands, and he was on his feet in the next second. He rounded the desk, whatever he was working on forgotten in an instant, and grabbed Patton’s hands. A quick kiss was pressed to Patton’s knuckles. “I’m sure he’s fine. Let me help you look.” Patton nodded. They checked every room in the house twice and Patton tried to text and call him multiple times, but there was no sign of Virgil anywhere.
“Okay,” Logan said after they’d finished looking. He somehow managed to act calm despite the fact that they were missing a child. “He is not in the house and will not answer his phone. I believe the conclusion is he likely ran away.”
“W-what did I do wrong?” Patton asked him.
“I assure you, you did nothing wrong, Patton,” Logan said. “You know this is not an unexpected circumstance. When we get him home, we will discuss it with him and figure out the trigger so we can correct it in the future, but please do not blame yourself.
“B-but what if he doesn’t come home. What if he gets hurt? He’s all alone and the city’s dangerous and…”
“Patton, he can take care of himself quite well. Remember, we are only a recent part of his life and he survived before us under worse conditions. You cannot forget that he is not powerless and knows the city quite well. He will be fine, and we will surely find him.”
Patton nodded, trying to keep his lower lip from wobbling. “What do we do?”
“We’ll inform the police and then start searching.”
With Patton’s name attached to the call to the police station, two officers were in their home within half an hour. They gave the two a picture of Virgil as well as a description of what he was last seen wearing. Patton was clearly having trouble not panicking despite Logan’s reassurances after the police officers left.
“I’ll go out and look for him as well,” Logan told him. “Will you be alright to stay here in case he comes back?” Patton nodded.
Logan ducked back into his office to get his wallet. He heard the unmistakable sound of Patton pacing and brushed him softly on the shoulder with his powers even before he could make it into the room.
Logan paused.
His powers. Logan had stupidly allowed his own worry about the situation to cloud his rational thought and hadn’t thought about his powers. Virgil was familiar enough to Logan by now that if he was close by, Logan would be able to find him with his powers.
That in mind, Logan closed his eyes and let himself feel the space around him. There was the crystal-clear familiarity of Patton a few feet in front of him that he disregarded to continue to search, letting his powers branch out from the center. He very quickly brushed against something living and familiar… and strangely quite close. He poked at it gently.
There was a startled yelp from behind the front hallway wall. Virgil tumbled out of the closet dragging a mess of blankets with him and looking wildly around himself. “Huh? Wha?”
“Virgil!” Patton threw himself at the boy.
Virgil seemed incredibly startled by this interaction but allowed the hug. He yawned and rubbed at his eyes. “Wha’s happening?” he asked.
“You were missing,” Logan informed him as Patton continued to fuss.
The boy’s eyebrows creased and then understanding seemed to suddenly light in his eyes. “Oh no, what time is it?” He grabbed his phone to check the time and blanched when he doubtlessly saw the numerous missed calls and messages. He looked back at Logan and the fear in his eyes made Logan want to squirm uncomfortably.
“It’s fine,” Logan said. “We were just worried.”
“Sorry,” he whispered. He tried to curl up into a ball but was impeded by Patton who was still latched onto him. “I fell asleep.”
“It’s okay,” Patton said, pulling him even closer. “We’re not mad, I promise.”
“Though I would implore you to take your phone off silent the next time you decide to nap in one of our closets.”
“I’ll, um, do that,” he agreed. “Erm, Patton,” he said, patting the man’s back a couple of times. “Are you going to let me go soon.”
“Nu-uh.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck like that for a while yet, Virgil,” Logan said. “He was quite distressed.”
Virgil sighed. “Can we at least move to the couch.”
“Logan,” Patton said.
Logan rolled his eyes. He lifted the both of them with his powers eliciting a startled squeak from Virgil and settled them on the couch.
Patton looked up at Logan and made grabbing motions at him. “I need to call the police department and call off the search first,” Logan said.
“You called the cops?!” Virgil asked.
“We were worried,” Patton said.
Virgil gave Logan a wide-eyed look. Logan sighed as he pulled out his phone. “We’re going to put a bell on you, Virgil.”