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bilgisticallykosher · 2 years

Text

Leisure Importance Maintains Everyone

Words: 1,846

Warnings: Mentions of sad pasts all around, brief concern of having lost the children, brief fire. It's totally fine don't worry about it.

Thank you to Andromeda/Jam on discord for fielding my questions on age, if they're not acting age appropriate then it's artistic license.

Lime's masterpost | AO3

Wibar | AO3

Teoba | AO3

My masterpost | AO3 | My discord

For @delimeful please read his works! There's wibar, teoba, and reverse teoba, which is as of yet unpublished, but very beloved already.

Virgil gets a self-care day.

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Virgil had been having a rough day. A rough couple of days. A rough week. A few rough months-

Virgil had had a rough life.

Yeah, yeah, boo hoo, everyone's got problems. Just your normal everyday typical emo teenage angst, right? Well, not that he was a teenager anymore, but there certainly wasn't anything normal, everyday, or typical about his situation.

He guessed it was even harder to fit in with people when you were kidnapped into space to be harvested for bodily fluids in a universe where almost every alien you met thought you were a bloodthirsty killing machine except for the three toddlers you'd come across and subsequently adopted when you'd escaped the smuggler's ship.

It was hard raising kids. Especially with all the language, culture, and species barriers that they all had. But he couldn't say it wasn't rewarding. At least, sometimes. It would eventually be really rewarding once they got past the terrible twos (or the frustrating fours, or the fearsome fives, or the stressful sixes, or-) but they were still cute little kids. He was just wildly unprepared for this, or any, sort of child-rearing.

But they were still cute little kids. They loved asking him about himself, especially Logan, about how things worked for humans, how it was on his planet, and he steadfastly ignored the pangs he got in his heart when he spoke about home. Logan had told him about the vidi thing that Ulgorii had, Virgil still thought of it as mind reading, but he was too young to be able to use it, so Virgil would often draw an approximation in the dirt, or sing his favorite songs. Sometimes they'd understand, sometimes they'd just be more confused.

Every time Logan would 'mind weave' and Virgil would wind up flapping his hands with him, which would get Roman going with his baby scales rattling and tail wagging, and they'd all be stimming. Except for Patton who was usually in the baby carrying pouch, but he still wiggled along with them. Virgil cracked a smile at the thought.

The thing was, he'd really been exhausted lately. He was ready to nap for about three and a half years. And then wake up from that to go right to sleep. And while that had basically been his personality before, although with more glaring and intimidation, but fatherhood had really taken its toll on him. He still got that warm feeling when they each called him dad. Or signed it. Or did that specific trill-chirp. Or called him what he'd figured out meant the equivalent of 'adult figure that holds significance in my life.'

He was getting distracted. Another result of his being overwhelmed and tired. And the thing about that was, he thinks they'd been noticing. Their questions had shifted from general (yes, human babies absolutely wear leashes, now please get in your harness and stop trying to headbutt everything) to specific (what do you like to do, how do humans relax, what makes you less angry-sad?) And he hated that. They were kids, they shouldn't know that he was feeling any sort of negative emotion. Especially when 'angry human' meant so much more here than it did on Earth. It took him so long to gain their trust and see them relax and open up, he wouldn't do anything to screw that up. Not after everything they'd gone through. He didn't want them to have to be afraid of anything anymore.

He sighed, getting up from his bed with a series of grunts and groans from him, and a series of creaks and other noises from his body itself. Okay, time to make things right, and pretend he was a functional human father. He exited his room, to see who was up, and was greeted with the sound of silence. This could have just been the kids sleeping, but there were usually Patton's light whistles, Roman's purring, and Logan's light clacking of limbs to go along with it. But it was silent.

Virgil broke into a cold sweat just barely after he broke into a run. He got to their room, but it was as empty as he had heard it. He looked in the common room, the bathrooms, the kitchen, but still nothing. He dashed outside, not even putting on his jacket in his distress, and then-

There they were. Huddled together over something, whispering to each other. They looked fine. Whole, un-harmed, and it looked like they were happy, too, going by Patton's little chirp giggles, Roman's slowly wagging tail, and Logan's relaxed arms. He let himself exhale, if only because he needed to inhale if he was going to tell them off for giving him a heart attack. He got halfway there when Roman gave a yelp.

"No!" Virgil blinked, and halted where he was, suddenly nervous again. "You can't be out here yet!" Roman gave a tiny little glare at him. Okay, he was…angry at him for some reason? "Go back to sleep!" Roman pointed back towards the ship, revealing his teeth in a human smile, which he knew in this case was supposed to be an intimidation factor. Virgil's lips twitched. He was like an angry kitten. Logan sighed.

"He's up already, there's no reason to make him go back." His arms began moving slightly, but Virgil couldn't tell what emotion he was conveying yet. He turned to Virgil, "Welcome to your rest day. We hope you find it," Logan considered for a moment, "restful," he concluded.

"We set this up for you!" Roman's posture changed completely, sitting proud, chest puffed out, chin up. "It's so you can have a day to relax!"

"'Lax!" Patton chimed in, making an excited flapping motion with his arms.

"I," Virgil was dumbfounded. He felt frozen, taken completely off-guard, but in a good way. But then he remembered he had kids looking at him, waiting for his response. "Really?" He gave a small smile, genuine, and started to walk closer. "What did you set up?"

"We've got a place for you to get clean, even though it doesn't fizz," Roman started, "and we're gonna walk on you to message your back," Virgil blinked at the English, trying to figure out what they meant from the context.

"I forgot the human word," Logan read his expression. "The one where you get your body punched?" Virgil tried not to laugh.

"A massage?" Logan nodded, and then it hit him, and suddenly repressing a laugh wasn't so hard anymore. He couldn't believe they had put all this thought and effort into making him-

"And we've got stinky stuff that we lit on fire!" Roman happily added.

"You what?!" Logan gestured to the back of the ship, mouth open to explain, but Virgil was already running towards it, some odd concoction of smells finally making its way into his nostrils. He went for the apparatus meant to clean off the outside of the ship (it was basically a hose), aiming it at what appeared to be some of Virgil's favorite fruits from the ship's fridge, along with some flowers that were now burnt beyond recognition. Homemade incense, he realized, slightly hysterical.

"... food that you liked, because we hy-poth-e-sized that you would enjoy the scent of them as well," Logan's voice drifted his way and he released the water mechanism, walking back over while it retracted back. "Also, we added-"

"How did you get that on fire." He not quite asked, slightly more hysterical, eye twitching. Logan brightened, ears standing up as high as he'd seen them when happy.

"We're resourceful!" Virgil wheezed out the breath he'd been holding, and he continued on. "We also have a fun book for you to read," he gestured at what looked like an enormous textbook, which for Logan probably was fun.

"And this planet doesn't have any clouds to watch, but we thought you could watch Patton!" Roman gestured to the tiny ampen, who raised his arms in response, beginning to toddle around Virgil at his top speed of still-pretty-slow.

"I cloud!" He exclaimed.

"We can make it more like how they really are if you'd like," Logan offered, "Roman is strong enough to throw him into the air." Patton struck a pose while Roman lifted his arms.

"No, don't-"

"And you can preen your face how you like, after your cleansing," Logan continued, unaware of the horrifying mental images Virgil was experiencing.

"Pree' pree'!" Patton was still running, "pree' like ampen!" Virgil was trying to keep it together, knowing he was failing, and he gestured to whatever it was that Roman and Logan were huddled around.

"What is this?"

"Well, you said you enjoyed adding pigment to your," Roman wiggled his fingers, "your claws?"

"Nails," Logan offered.

"Yeah! Nails." He stepped away from the huddle and saw a bunch of purple flora native to the current planet they were on.

"They're probably poisonous," and Virgil already opened his mouth, "but I can touch them without problem," Logan was quick to assure him, "which means you'll probably be okay." He was getting emotional, overwhelmed as he was with all the concern and planning they'd clearly been doing. How much they cared about him.

"We were trying to crush them so you could color them," Roman informed him, "because they're your favorite color." And his eyes spilled over with the tears that he couldn't hold back anymore. Roman gasped.

"You are experiencing cry!" Logan declared, alarmed, and Patton stopped running, looking at his face, fluff settling in worry. And Virgil choked out a laugh.

"Did we do something bad? We're sorry, we can make it good again!" Roman looked distressed, scales and tail raised, and Virgil shook his head, smiling.

"No, it's-" he sobbed out another laugh, "sometimes humans do this when they're happy." Roman physically lowered his defenses, and everyone looked confused and wary. "And right now I'm very, very happy." They all perked up again, Patton re-fluffing. "Thank you. Thank you all, so, so much." He looked at Roman, "thank you," he looked at Logan, "thank you," he looked at Patton, "thank you."

He crouched down, eyes still damp, and held out his arms, not intimidating, just offering. "Hug time?" Patton immediately flew into him, Roman slowly, as if he still weren't sure if he was actually happy, joined, and even Logan came in at the edges, lightly touching each of them with one of his arms.

Yeah. Unexpected fatherhood was definitely worth it.

(Later when he acquiesced to the 'bubble bath spa day' as he mentally called it, he found himself on the receiving end of the high pressured ship hose, knocking him into the ground as Patton rolled across the terrain proclaiming his status as a cloud, while Roman and Logan badly serenaded him.

"When I was! A small child! My adult figure that holds significance in my life! Took me to a highly populated area! To observe a musical group which traveled on foot!"

Worth it, he reminded himself with barely a grimace.)

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@callboxkat @katelynn-a-fan @dwbh888 @royal-stormcloud @thefivecalls @awkwardjester @ollyollyoxinfree @intruxiety @brain-deadx0 @the-grounded-raven @just-your-typical-trans-guy @grouptalekindnesssoul @the-hoely-bleach @anvil527up @fanficloverinthesun

#lime chapter #one shot chapter #delimeful #reverse teoba #sanders sides #logan sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #kid au #alien au #my stories

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