Chapter Text
Patton had been an optimist his entire life, somehow. To be fair, it had nothing to do with his personal experiences and everything to do with his love for life as a concept. Patton felt that he was lucky just to exist, lucky to have found such loving and accepting parents, lucky to feel so secure and happy as himself, lucky that he could do and see everything he wanted to do and see. Patton felt lucky, nothing else to it.
“Honey I’m home!” he called out jokingly into the open air, using his foot to help open the door to his apartment. In his hands, groceries were piled high, his spoils from his trip to the grocery store.
The store had been out of spinach, so they would have to forego the salads that he and Virgil forced themselves to eat every few meals, just for a semblance of healthiness in their lives.
“Pat? Is that you?” Virgil’s head poked out from around the corner. Patton was so lucky about so many things, and just knowing Virgil was one of them. The two of them had been inseparable since middle school, but the fact that they had both ended up at the same college had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with their shared love for the English language and a certain bond that could only possibly form between two boys who entrusted one another with such unique, such important secrets as they did.
“Who else would it be?” Patton said with a grin, setting the groceries down on the small table that they had set up in the middle of the tiny room. “Is anyone else around here referring to you as ‘honey’?”
“Last time I checked it was just you,” Virgil replied, beginning to help Patton stuff as many of the groceries as he could into their minifridge. “But then again, better safe than sorry.”
“Touche,” Patton replied. “Cutesy nicknames, that’s how they lower your guard…”
Virgil just laughed, a deep rumbling sound that Patton had been hearing for years, yet he never failed to feel a rush of happiness upon hearing it. “Alright, you find some cheesy feel-good movie to put on, I prepare our first round of food?”
“After last week’s disaster? Yes please,” Patton replied, smiling.
Being around Virgil was as comforting for him as it was for Virgil. Virgil’s brain seemed to slow down a bit when Patton was around, and a sense of contentment seemed to surround him. He was familiar, and safe, and Patton had known him so long that he could sometimes predict how he felt about any situation before he actually felt the shift in Virgil’s emotions.
Virgil gave him a grin. “I didn’t know it was physically possible to burn ramen, what with it being immersed in water and all, but you managed.”
“Well, I am a man of many talents,” Patton replied, a bit of an inside joke between them, already squatting down in front of their little box TV and looking through the collection of DVDs below. They’d been collecting since they were both children, but they’d agreed that only the essentials should come alone to them with college. That’s why, after a mere four hours of soft bickering, they’d settled on their twenty favorites to bring along.
“Hmm,” Patton mumbled to himself as he ran through his options. He could hear Virgil bustling around in the kitchen, humming the lyrics to some old song as he worked. “Something cheesy and feel-goodsy…” Patton said, then giggled at the word ‘feel-goodsy’.
He settled on Avengers , for both a comforting and fun storyline and Captain America’s ass, though he’d never admit the second one.
He and Virgil had been watching Avengers for years now, but what could he say? The movie held up. They’d always end up watching it somehow after bad breakups, difficult tests, kids being jerks, anything. It was a comfort movie, and one of the few that Virgil could stomach seeing more than three or four times. Movies like that were to be treasured.
Virgil waltzed back over to their shoddy little hand me down couch and sat down next to Patton, pulling him out of his thoughts, their plates clutched in Virgil’s calloused hands. “Our main course tonight will be none other than those gourmet reheated pizza slices that were apparently still left in the back of our fridge,” he announced with a flourish, handing Patton his plate.
Patton played along, gasping. “The very same gourmet reheated pizza slices that may or may not have been ordered a week ago?” he asked, doing his best but ultimately failing to hide the start of a grin tugging the corners of his lips up.
Virgil nodded gravely. “Those very same slices.” They stared at one another for a moment before they both burst out laughing. “Alright, what movie did you choose?” Virgil asked him mirthfully, and Patton simply nodded at the TV, where Avengers was all cued up and ready to go. “Nice!”
“Well, it is a cinematic marvel !” Patton joked, grinning at Virgil’s soft groan. “How could I not pick it?” He took a large bite of the pizza, chewing at the slightly stringy cheese.
“Terrible pun, Pat,” Virgil said, shaking his head as he shuffled a little bit closer to his shorter friend as he took a bite of his own slice. “ Terrible pun.”
Patton loved these nights on their ratty old sofa, eating cheap food and watching movies that they’d both already seen too many times to count. He knew they both had homework they needed to get done, and the next morning their stomachs would probably hate them, but these nights were to be cherished.
After all, Friday nights were one of the only nights he used to be able to have friends over.
Patton was fifteen, dressed in hand me down pajamas, and sitting in his living room, practically vibrating off the walls.
“Goodness,” his mother chuckled, walking into the room and finding her son staring at the front door anxiously, knee bouncing up and down feverishly. “He’s only five minutes late, Pattycake, I’m sure he’ll be here in a moment. Maybe traffic was just rough.” She was amused, which seemed to be her default setting. Amused and fond.
“I know, I know,” Patton said, bouncing his leg a little bit faster as the corners of his lips twitched. “Sorry Mom, I’m just anxious.”
Patton could feel his mom’s ripple of pride as he said that. He looked up to see his mother trying her best to hide a grin. That always happened these days, even though he’d gotten used to calling her mom almost a year ago. “And I can tell that from all the way over here!” his mother commented. “What makes this Virgil guy so special, hmm Pattycake?”
“He’s a friend,” Patton said, distracted, looking up and meeting his mom’s growing smirk with a groan. “No, Mom, not like that. He’s just a friend, I swear.” He wasn’t just a friend, he was Patton’s closest friend, but he didn’t really think saying that would help his case. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need his mother to know it for it to be true.
“Alright, whatever you say,” his mom said with another smirk. “You two are sleeping in the living room though, you hear me? Not your room.”
The doorbell dinged then, luckily saving Patton from any kind of further embarrassing gossiping. Vaulting to his feet, Patton rushed over to the door, opening it quickly and doing his best to act like his entire face hadn’t been flushed a brilliant red only moments earlier.
Virgil, complete with an overnight bag, stood on his front porch. As Patton took his friend’s image in, Virgil’s anxiety spiked through him like lightning. Virgil was clutching his bag close to his chest, eyes a little bit wide and unsure, knuckles white. Patton frowned. He didn’t really mean to read Virgil, but it wasn’t like he could help it.
“Hey,” Patton said softly to his friend as he took him in, Virgil’s anxiety still coursing underneath his skin like boiling water. He didn’t really need his empathy to figure out that Virgil was tense, but oh well. “You doing okay there, Virge?”
Virgil swallowed, nodding, shoving down whatever he was feeling. Patton resisted a small wince at that. Repression was never good in the long run. “Yeah,” he finally replied, cracking a small grin as he took in Patton in his baby blue pajamas. His mood shifted to a more positive one. “Yeah, better now.”
Patton beamed at that. “Great! Welcome to my home!” he said with a small flourish. “Come on in!”
As Virgil walked through the front door, Patton’s mom came around the corner, still grinning. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Virgil!” she exclaimed happily. “Patton’s told me so much about you.”
“Mom…” Patton grumbled, flushing a little bit, but Virgil just laughed a little bit.
“It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am, thank you for letting me stay the night.”
Oh gosh, he’s so polite.
“Please, call me Mrs. Hart,” Patton’s mother said with a small smile.
When his mother left, Virgil began to look around his living room. Patton followed his gaze, a frantic bundle of excited and nervous thoughts. Virgil’s gaze rested for an unnaturally long time on the mantle, and Patton frowned a little bit.
Virgil’s house was full of baby pictures. You get through the front door, there are baby pictures on the walls. You go to use the bathroom, bam, more baby pictures hanging above the toilet. Their living room practically looked like a ‘greatest hits’ from Virgil and his older sibling’s lives. Patton had even found baby pictures all over the mug of hot chocolate his mother had handed him. They were everywhere. Virgil was the youngest of four, and Patton didn’t think there had been a moment of silence in that tiny house. He positively loved it.
Patton’s house didn’t have baby pictures. They didn’t even have him when he was a baby. Patton didn’t remember his childhood, as he was a baby at the time, but he did remember the foster care system.
Baby pictures don’t make a family, Patton reminded himself firmly. Sure, it would be nice for him to remember anything from his youth, but he was happy now, under the care of two loving parents that he cared for very deeply. No sense in dwelling on what you couldn’t remember. Besides, he had Virgil here right now, and his top priority was making his friend feel comfortable in this new space.
“Your house is so much cleaner,” was the first thing that Virgil said, after a long moment of silence. He wasn’t exactly wrong, the entire living room looked as though it had been surgically bleached. His parents liked a clean home.
Patton burst into laughter at that. “I promise my room looks more lived in,” he replied. “Plenty of dirty clothing on the floor.”
Sometimes, Patton hated feeling other people’s emotions. Sometimes it was a rush of hatred and disgust and all kinds of horrifying darkness that made Patton feel dirty just for feeling it secondhand. Sometimes it was sadness so crippling that Patton’s own knees felt weak, that he could feel himself tearing up. Sometimes, it was fear so paralyzing that he felt his joints lock up and his own breathing get shaky.
Tonight, it was joy and excitement and a tinge of adrenaline that usually accompanied exploration. Tonight, Patton had never been less bothered by his empathic skill.
As they watched the movie, Patton could feel his mind beginning to wander. This was in no way the fault of Avengers, he’d simply seen it more times than he could count. Besides, now his brain was full of thoughts regarding his special skills.
The empathy was bad enough, forcing him to pry into people’s heads when he didn’t want to know, but his second skill was even worse, even more intrusive. Patton knew secrets, or more accurately, one secret per person. Sometimes he knew their worst fear, sometimes he knew their greatest hope. On very rare occasions the two were the same.
For instance, when he first met him, Virgil’s greatest fear was someone discovering that he was different. It had changed since that day, but Patton had known and always would know with nothing more than a simple cursory glance exactly what it was. There were no words floating in circles around Virgil’s head, there was no psychic link moment where everything became clear to him, he just looked at him, and he knew. He didn’t have any better way to explain it.
Patton hated it. His mom’s greatest fear was cancer, and his dad’s greatest hope was to give his wife and son the best lives that they could possibly have. Most people’s were generic like that, but more often than he’d like to admit Patton would stumble across something that he’d rather not know.
He’d outed his first foster father at age eight, asking his mom what a homosexual was, and why his new daddy was so worried about her finding out. He’d informed his second foster father bitterly at age twelve that his wife was having an affair, one that she feared he’d discover. It wasn’t until he was thirteen and finally settled in with his mom and dad that he was able to relax.
Patton was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that when the doorbell rang, he jumped about a foot in the air, jostling the table.
“Oh crap!” he cried out in distress, watching as Virgil’s glass teetered, before beginning to fall to the floor, almost as if in slow motion.
Quick as a blink, Virgil’s hand shot out, easily snatching the glass before it hit the floor. He’d barely even looked up from his phone.
“Nice catch,” Patton said with a grin. “Show off.”
Virgil stuck his tongue out at him. “What can I say? I’m a man of many talents.”
Two, to be exact. They both had two. It had taken Virgil a long time to use his around Patton, but his enhanced reflexes came in handy around the house, as Patton tended to bump into anything and everything that could be broken. Virgil had probably saved about ninety percent of their dishes by this point. Super fast reflexes don’t sound very much like a superpower until you bump the dining room table over and not a single dish ends up broken.
“I’ll go see who it is,” Patton said cheerfully, patting Virgil’s silky purple locks as he passed him by, smoothing out his shirt in an attempt to make himself marginally more presentable before pulling open their heavy oak door.
“Hello!” Patton said cheerfully, his smile dipping momentarily as he took in the scene before him.
A young boy, maybe about his and Virgil’s age, stood in front of them. He had dark hair, so dark it was almost black, and navy blue spectacles on his face. He was dressed in all black, almost formal. He was expressionless, but a wave of guilt hit Patton like a brick. He began to feel uneasy.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” Patton tried again, eyes flicking behind the boy to see the two men standing there, staring straight ahead. They almost looked like soldiers.
“I suppose,” the boy spoke, and Patton turned his attention back to him. He appeared to be sizing Patton up, an action which was not appreciated. “Are you Patton Hart or Virgil Sinclair?”
“That would be me,” Patton said carefully, “What can I do to help you good folks?”
The boy in front of him opened his mouth again, when he heard from down the hall, “Pat? Everything good out there?” Virgil was nervous, he could tell from his voice.
“Ah good, that answers my next question,” Logan said with a nod, now rummaging around in his back pocket for something. “Well, Patton, I would tell you that I am incredibly sorry about this, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t find myself bothered by this. After all, it is necessary.”
Patton was taking a step back, already trying to close the door, but the man closest to him grabbed it before he could. “Virgil!” Patton shrieked as they pushed past him into the house, and then he felt a sharp prick in the side of his neck.
Looking back at the young boy, Patton swayed for a moment, suddenly feeling heavy. Blinking drearily, he squinted in an attempt to focus. What was he supposed to be doing? Gosh, he sure felt worn out. Wouldn’t it be nice if he could just take a little nap?
As Patton’s eyes sagged closed, he could hear Virgil doing something, most likely fighting the other men, but he couldn’t keep his focus on much of anything for too long.
Family,
he thought as he drifted off, staring up into the other boy’s bright blue eyes,
his biggest hope is for a family.
And then his eyelids slipped shut, and he could feel his head thunk against their floorboards.
Patton didn’t dream while he slept. It was just dark. He couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t hear anything, but he knew he was asleep. That in itself was peculiar. Patton was a lucid dreamer, and usually his entire night was filled with fantastical adventures and unusual shenanigans.
He awoke in a strange bed, in the middle of a strange room. His eyes snapped open, another unusual occurrence for him, seeing as Patton usually took ages to muster up the courage to open his eyes after a full night’s rest.
The room was dimly lit, and he sat up, rubbing his neck slightly as he took in his surroundings. To his left was a table, a couple of books stacked underneath. In the right corner sat a potted plant with a light blue vase. In the chair next to the potted plant sat the same boy from the night before, staring intently at him.
Patton jolted as he noticed him.
“Oh, good,” the boy said with what looked like an attempt at a friendly smile. “You’re awake. We may begin. My name is Logan.”
Patton sat there, his mind racing. Should I say something? Will that make it worse? Where am I? Who is Logan? How long was I asleep? What am I doing here? Why did he take me?
Where’s Virgil?