Work Text:
It’s safe to say that Virgil believe in impossible things, at this point. Well, he has a more open mind than some. He has impossible eyes and an impossible husband, after all. Both of which he’d come to embrace despite what others thought about it.
Purple would never be his favorite color, (that’s a spot reserved for the chocolate brown of his brother’s eyes and lover’s hair,) but he’d come to be comfortable seeing it in the mirror every morning without feeling the need to hide them behind colored contacts. He embraces it further by wearing the color in most of his wardrobe, and making it the color of his sheets and curtains.
He embraced the weird mannerisms of Logan, of all the little modern things that he didn’t quite understand or care for. They went for hikes in the woods so that they could see even a fraction of the number of stars his husband once saw, visited an old bakery that had been standing since the early 1800’s. All the while he made notecards of confusing slang words and introduced Logan to tablets and Tv’s, to queer spaces and online culture.
He’s embraced the impossible parts of his life, so he isn’t exactly alarmed when he starts feeling frequent instances of deja vu. Sometimes it’s just something someone says, or a little slip of knowledge from a dream he’d had, things that he’s feels like he’s seen and done before.
It’s new and weird, but he doesn’t fully comprehend it until one night he settles into the darkness of sleep, and dreams. He dreams in a way he’s never done before, because it feels so real.
He’s sitting in a wooden chair, writing on a piece of paper with a quill, of all things. He’s never touched one in his life and yet it moves smoothly and naturally between his fingers, darting between a pot of ink and paper, writing in a cursive that is wobbly but way more legible than his own handwriting has ever been. His clothes feel soft, much softer than he remembers and yet so familiar, worn and obviously being pushed past it’s normal lifespan by all the small stitches and patches.
And then - and then the door to the cabin opens (because this is way too small to be a house, it’s a tiny log cabin, what the hell,) and there’s. Logan. His husband - but not.
No, this is not his husband, they could never have such an honor, never officially. But they are each other's whole world, they are partners in every sense of the word even if the church would damn them for daring to love each other.
But that’s not true, is it? They’re married, they’ve lived in the same home together for years now. They go out with their friends on weekends when hey can, Lo works in the little library by-
Logan is a scientist through and through, maybe not so reputable to the world for a lack of money and resources to carry out his genius plans, but that’s alright. Varion will write all of it down, he will record the wonderful thoughts that brain storms up, because the world will respect him one day, dammit. Even if he’s just a humble journalist, surly he can do his partner this one service, he can be sure the world will know the name Logan Berry-
And then he woke up.
It was a shock, like ice water in his veins. Because he didn’t - that wasn’t just a dream, was it? It couldn’t be. He’d never felt something so vivid in a dream before, never felt such certain thoughts that didn’t come from him like that. And even as the details slipped from his mind - impossibly, like sand through and hourglass just gone, like he wasn’t meant to remember - he latched onto one piece. One piece of information, that he gripped like a vice, until he was able to reach over and shake his husband awake.
“Lo, what was - your last name, what was it before?”
They’d never discussed it, which was a bit ridiculous. But Logan had been adamant in wanting to take Virgil’s last name for whatever reason, and when he was evasive about why he’d chosen to let it be. But it’s been years now, years since they met, since they started their lives together, surely he could at least know what his husband's full name had been. Especially if it could confirm or deny if he was just going insane at the moment.
Lo must not have heard him fully, because he rolled over to face him, squinting because his glasses were still folded on the nightstand and asked:
“What’s wrong?”
“I- nothing. Just, your last name. What did it used to be?”
“Don’t worry yourself over such things. The sun’s yet to rise, please go back to sleep.”
“C’mon, just tell me.”
“...It is ridiculous.”
“I will literally buy you an entire case of that jam you’re so obsessed with.”
The fact that Logan even paused for the few seconds he did at that meant he must’ve really been embarassed about it.
“Berry. Are you satisfied?”
Now that he thought about it, ‘Logan Berry’ was a kind of embarrassing name, if really cute. But the answer didn’t make him smile, it just left him with an existential crisis building as he laid back down and made a note to visit the grocery store later.
The next dream was a little different, but he thinks similar in construction, from what he very vaguely remembers of the last one.
He’s in the log cabin, and he’s standing infront of a wood-burning oven. It’s a bit warm, the windows are all open and his sleeves are rolled up. He can’t quite identify what meat he just shoved in there, but it smells good and there’s definitely some spices in there.
Just a sprinkle of rosemary and lemon, like Logan likes, with a bit of ground black pepper and salt all sitting with the bit of oleo he’d been saving for today. All in all he’d had to save a good bit to be able to make this, but at least the salmon had been easy. It was all worth it though, for Logan’s birthday.
Some of this he knew already, like hoe Logan likes his fish. It’d been weird when his husband saw him come home one day with miniature cartons of salt and pepper and a whole box of butter, when they finally had a kitchen they could make big meals in. Logan had practically cried when he said they could get things like jam, spices, butter and meat every week easily. They still took part in maintaining a community garden to get vegetables most of the time, which was nice, mostly because it was fun and he actually made friends with a few neighbors.
It’d be a while before the food was done, but Logan wasn’t due to come home for an hour at least. He took the time to do a quick once-over of himself, looking in the mirror in the bedroom. His hair was getting longer, just at his shoulders now, plain and black. The old man who sold tea in town always made fun of it, asking if he could see through the fringes that covered his eyes. Varion liked to think it was really quite nice, and Logan liked the look.
But his hair had always covered the top half of his face, even when he’d cut it shorter in the back. After all, the town already had their suspicions about him and his lover, they didn’t need yet another thing to hold against him. Like his eyes, such an unnatural color, if he believed in that nonsense he might call himself a vampire. Pale as limestone no matter how much time he spent outside, his dislike for the taste of onions and garlic, and this-
He stared back at a familiar face. He really looked just the same as this guy, though the hair was much darker and he had never worn a tie of his own volition for anything but his own wedding. But that was definitely his face - and his eyes. The exact same shade of purple, dark enough to be confused for black at a glance but when the light caught, they practically glowed.
But then he swiped his bangs back over his face, (not of his own volition,) and returned to the kitchen. Or at least, that’s where he assumed the not-him, Varion, went, because it was then that he awoke and forgot most of what he’d seen in moments.
The final dream, at least that he knew about, wasn’t so domestic. It was also a memory he didn’t feel he should be allowed to see, but he didn’t have much choice.
It had been a long time coming. Varion knew this day would come, fools didn’t need evidence to decide they were right and take action, but in this case they’d just been given the most irrefutable proof they could have. He would never blame Logan, of course, it was a mistake - everyone makes mistakes. And it wasn’t entirely his fault, either. He knew that his hair was a poor disguise for his face, he’d heard the whispers around every corner of the Purple Demon living in their town.
If only he were such a thing, he’d have the power to fight back. But their luck had finally run out this day, their unsure peace with the town and it’s people was over.
He wasn’t dressed for running, but it wasn’t like they had time to change their shoes or even grab any of their belongings, if they wanted a chance. The livingroom was on fire from a smashed lantern, and they were rushing out the back door.
They didn’t get far before whose who had been neighbors and even tentative friends got wise to their trick and they were being perused. If only he’d taken off those damned slippers, he might not have tripped so easily as he ran.
Logan was faster, thankfully, with longer legs and a bit more experience running through the woods - he’d been born here, Varion wasn’t and never spent much time exploring when he had to work every minute of every day just to eat.
It was last breath he took, urging his love to keep running, to not look back, when something tore through his back. It hurt, it burned so painfully that he would've been thankful it barely lasted ten seconds before he could feel nothing at all.
It was painful to breathe with the phantom pain in his chest, when he shot awake in the middle of the night. It faded in seconds but he remembered it so clearly it was hard to convince himself it was really just a dream.
As Virgil rolled onto his side and stared into the face of his husband, gentle and untroubled in sleep, he wondered how Logan had ever found a way to get over that pain. From what he knew, there’d been little to no time for him to cope, not really. (Not that they’d ever spoken in-depth about what it was like to be a statue, but he didn’t think it involved a lot of mental healing and therapy.)
Virgil believes in impossible things, because it had been an impossible thing that ostracized him from his peers since he was a child, and an impossible thing that brought him back into society years later. So even if it seemed completely impossible for someone to be whole after so much pain, to have a decent life and live happily… he’d make sure it happened. Because he loves Logan with the love of two hearts, one beating and one just a memory, and if that isn’t strong enough to overcome the impossible that what could be?