#dad!orange

"Now, now, no rough housing. Remember hitting one—” Patton began, eyeing his three sons expectantly.

"Is hitting two," they chanted in unison. Virgil sighed quietly. Not feeling soul pain was just one more reminder of how different he was from his brothers. While the twins were tall and strong and had curly red hair like Pops had, Virgil was slim and gangly, with wispy black hair. While they played varsity football, tackling the smaller players with gleeful vehemence, Virgil hadn't even made the cut for varsity swim.

And while his brothers had soulmates—Roman had even already met his—Virgil clearly did not. Virgil stared down into his bowl, willing his tears to stay behind his eyelids. He wasn't sure which would be worse right now, the terror twins poking at him for crying at the breakfast table or Dad cooing and making a big deal out of it.

"Yeah, Re, it's not Virge's fault he doesn't actually have a soulmate to hurt."

Virgil pulled his hood up over his head and hunched over his bowl as his brothers laughed, forcing himself to have just a few more bites of his breakfast. No matter how much he wanted to just flee from the table and hide in his room until it was time to leave for school, he'd learned from experience that skipping breakfast would just lead to hunger pangs by third period.

Patton gave Virgil's shoulders a warm squeeze. "Oh, of course you have a soulmate, kiddo!"

"Yeah, don't listen to us, Virge," Remus cried as he gave Virgil a too-tight hug and Roman pulled back his hood to ruffle his hair. "Besides, even if you don't have a soulmate, you'll always have us!"

Patton had always tried to reassure him that his lack of soul pain didn't mean he didn't have a soulmate. Every time he'd crawl into his lap after the twin's—at times not so gentle—ribbing, Patton would dry his tears and sing to him until his crying stopped. Then he would smile and murmur, "Don't you remember back in kindergarten?" Virgil would shake his head ‘no’ just to hear the story again. Patton smiled and pulled Virgil closer, wrapping his arms tightly around his son. "On the second day of school, you came home crying because your arm hurt."

He would lay his head against his father's shoulder, listening to the low rumble in his chest as he told the story. "We checked your arm, we put ice on it, we massaged it. Nothing worked." Patton gently rubbed his arm as he spoke. "It just hurt." Virgil nodded, remembering the ache he couldn't understand, and the fear it had spurred in him. "Finally, we took you to the doctor and he confirmed it—it was soul pain." Patton kissed the side of Virgil's head as he smoothed back his hair. "A broken arm was his best guess."

That was the last time Virgil felt soul pain. And as Virgil had grown, so had his doubts as he’d watched his brothers complain about their own periodic soul pains. One bad night, after he'd crept into his father's room after yet another nightmare of being left alone in their big, empty house, Virgil finally voiced his fear.

"But, Dad… what if I used to have a soulmate and… and they—" Unbidden, his eyes trailed over to the old picture of Pops that his dad kept on his nightstand.

Patton was quiet for a while and Virgil immediately regretted his question. He pulled his son in for a long hug. "You would know, Kiddo," he whispered roughly. "You would know."

---

Logan Sanders was very careful. Extraordinarily, exceptionally careful.

When Logan was five years old, he'd sat shivering on a tall examining table in the emergency room. They'd had to cut off his favorite thermal knit space shirt—it was covered in blood anyway—and given him only a thin hospital gown to replace it. He examined the skin on his arm where his goosebumps disappeared underneath the edges of the new heavy cast that covered his right arm from his palm all the way up above his elbow.

And he listened in horror to the whispered conversation between his fathers and his doctor.

"Pain management will be particularly important." The doctor's voice was that serious tone that all the doctors would get around Daddy and Papa. "Logan is five now. His soulmate will feel the same pain he does."

"Fuck that little brat and his parents for letting him push Lo off the slide!" Logan's eyes widened. He'd never heard Daddy say a bad word before.

"Luc," Logan heard Papa hushing Daddy. "Lo's just in the next room, my dear…"

"But don't people teach their kids basic fucking compassion anymore!? Don't they care that their little monster—"

"Messrs. Sanders…" Logan heard Daddy's sharp huff. He slid off the table and crept closer to the doorway. He watched their reflection in the glass on the other side of the hallway and he scrunched his nose when he saw Papa hold Daddy's hand, kissing his palm. He knew eavesdropping was bad, and spying even worse, but the doctor's voice was too quiet to hear from all the way over on the examining table. And he had to know what they were saying.

Logan chewed at his lip but then stopped himself, thinking about his soulmate's lip. "Has Logan started to experience soul pains himself?" The doctor spoke without looking up from the clipboard, eyebrows furrowed.

Logan rubbed his upper arm, remembering the flurry of sudden, throbbing pains he'd felt on his upper arm and back last December. And the sharp stabbing in his shins most mornings. And the stomach aches that brought him to tears and made him not want to eat, no matter what Daddy made for him.

Papa's voice was strained. "Yes, we believe he has." Logan watched their reflection with wide eyes as Daddy put his arm around his shoulders and Papa sniffled.

The doctor cleared his throat, shifting his clipboard between his hands. "Well, this is the age when most parents start to tell their children about soulmates. Some parents avoid it for longer than they should. It can be an… uncomfortable conversation. How much does Logan already know? I can… I can recommend some books if that would make the conversation easier for you three."

Daddy chuckled and Logan felt his own shoulders relax in response. Papa started to sound like himself again when he murmured, "I believe we may have a passing familiarity with some of those books. Thank you, Doctor."

"You should go check who wrote those books, Doc." Daddy had laughed loudly before a hand over his mouth muffled the deep rumble. Papa said something to Daddy in a voice too quiet for Logan to hear. Clearing his throat, Daddy asked, "Can we take Logan home now?"

Despite that night's special dinner, the long bubble bath—he got to wear a special oceanographer's sleeve over his cast—and the double bedtime stories from both Papa and Daddy, sleep did not come easy for Logan. He'd changed position every few minutes, the deep ache in his arm thrumming under his skin no matter how he tried to lay. Logan closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his cast. He imagined his soulmate, huddled under covers like he was, also crying from their shared pain. So Logan did what Papa had said and imagined himself rubbing his soulmate's arm, picturing the pain fading away, evaporating like little drops of water in the sun.

As the pain slowly eased enough for Logan to begin to feel the tug of sleep at his limbs, he'd whispered into his darkened room, "I'm sorry. I won't ever hurt you like this again. I swear."

---

"Ugh, Nerd Alert," Roman muttered, loudly, as the new sophomore passed them in the hallway.

Remus craned his neck to look over Roman's shoulder and shrugged. "He's a little geeky, but he's got nice… eyes."

He scoffed. "You would think so!" Roman slammed his locker shut, half an inch from Virgil's head where he knelt to access his own locker in the bottom row. "Hey, I missed you this time."

Rubbing the back of his head in the memory of the many mornings when Roman had not missed catching his head with the corner of his locker door. "Yeah, thanks for that."

But Roman had already resumed his conversation with Remus. They leaned back against the bank of lockers, sizing up the new student as he stopped in front of a locker on the other side of the hall. He held a small card in front of him, scowling at it, attempting to decipher the smudged numbers that would unlock his new locker. He turned the lock, left-right-left, slowing as he approached each number. Carefully lining up the last number, he tugged on the latch.

It wouldn't budge.

The sophomore stared down at the card in his hands and tried again, rapidly twisting the lock to reset it.

Roman shook his head at this twin. "This guy's trouble. I heard he had to change schools because even the teachers at his last school were mad at him for trying to get football banned."

"What!?" Remus stood a little straighter. "What's his problem with football?"

"Some shit about hurting soulmates."

As he crouched in front of his own lower level locker, Virgil wordlessly watched as the new student's face lit up when he tugged up on the locker handle and it swung open with a tiny squeak. He felt a little smile tugging at his own lips as he watched him clip a copy of his schedule to the inside of the locker door, then arranged his books in a tidy row along the bottom of the locker.

Roman nudged Remus and tilted his chin toward their younger brother. "Awww, does somebody have a widdle cwush on the new kid?" Remus laughed and pulled Virgil to his feet, rubbing his knuckles roughly against the top of his head. Virgil's vision was obscured by Remus' arm, so he didn't see when the new kid winced, briefly rubbing the top of his own head.

---

Logan Sanders stood at the front of the chemistry lab, equidistant from the teacher’s desk and the large whiteboard that covered the wall. This was his last class of the day and by now he'd internalized the steps. First, hunt down the room through the byzantine halls—what kind of school has room #213 across the hall from #216 and next to room #238? Then, he would approach the teacher's desk, present the school transfer note and class schedule and introduce himself. Last, wait for the teacher to decide what to do with him.

The Honors English teacher hadn't been terrible, merely distracted, and had waved Logan toward the rows of seats, telling him to pick an empty seat.

The Math Analysis instructor had left him waiting at the front of the room for the first half of the period. Logan spent the time darting between students awkwardly in an attempt to stay out of the way as she'd assigned them problem sets from the homework to write out on the whiteboards around the room. She had snapped at Logan when he’d quietly drawn one student’s attention to a small arithmetic error in her work that had percolated through her proof, leading her to the wrong answer. He'd wanted to sink into the floor when all eyes turned to him as though they'd all finally noticed him standing there.

So Logan stiffened his jaw and stood a little straighter when the Chemistry teacher told him to wait until everyone else was seated before assigning him a seat—and, consequently—a lab partner.

"Mr. Knight?" he called toward the back of the room.

Three heads raised and three voices answered, "Yes, Mr. Neal?" One of the students, the tall one with facial hair—Oh, for the love of Archimedes, is that a full mustache?—had replied in a sing-song voice. Mr. Neal narrowed his eyes and nodded as though coming to a decision. "Roman, please take the empty seat next to Virgil." Logan watched as the shorter boy slouched, edging his seat a little further from the vacant seat the taller boy— Roman, Logan reminded himself—slid into. Logan had assumed they'd been brothers—there was a strong resemblance, particularly between the two taller boys in varsity jackets, but Virgil didn't appear to be happy to sit next to him. He adjusted his glasses and frowned, tucking the puzzle away to ponder later.

"Logan," Mr. Neal finally turned to him. "Take the empty seat in the back next to Remus."

"Yes, sir." Logan adjusted his backpack and nodded. "Thank you, sir."

The older Knight boys snickered at his response. Remus waved broadly, waggling his eyebrows at Logan as Roman glared at the boy. Logan glanced one more time at Mr. Neal before he walked down the aisle to the last row of lab tables, but the teacher had already begun his instructions on how to prepare the Bunsen burners for today’s lab.

Logan kept his eyes trained on the aisle in front of him, minding his step and steering around the backpacks and chair legs hazardously poking out irregularly in his path. Roman and Remus were still laughing when he approached his seat and sat down.

Now that he was closer, he saw they were a few years older than most of the rest of the class, and certainly older than both Virgil and himself. What were they doing in sophomore chemistry, anyway?

Roman sneered as he walked past and muttered, too low for the teacher to hear, "You even think about messing with football at our school and you might as well go homeschool right now."

Virgil hissed at his brother, "C'mon, man, lay off... He's new." Logan didn't respond, keeping his eyes trained on the lab bench as he slid into the open seat next to Remus.

Roman whacked Virgil's arm with the back of his hand, his senior class ring adding extra oomph to the blow. "Whatever. He's not messing with swim teams. You have nothing to worry about."

Virgil scowled at Roman as he rubbed his arm. Remus' eyes widened slightly when Logan's hand jerked toward his own arm and leaned over to whisper to his brothers just when Mr. Neal called his name.

”Remus? Do you have an answer for the class?

”Yes, sir, Mr. Neal." Remus grinned madly, rising to his feet. "The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, sir." He shrugged when the class laughed. “Hey, not bad for someone who didn’t even hear the question.”

Mr. Neal appeared to barely suppress an eye roll before he spotted Logan’s raised hand. "Yes, Logan?"

”The emergency shut-off for the gas is in the back corner under the yellow sign.”

“Good. Lucky for you, Remus, your lab partner is paying attention.”

Wincing, Logan waited until Mr. Neal directed his attention to the other side of the room before he turned and offered his hand to his new lab partner, "Salu"—Logan heard Papa's voice in his head, Stick with a simple 'hi', Lo—"Um, Hello, I'm Logan."

Remus stared at his hand for a moment before grinning wickedly and shaking his hand. "It's good to have some fresh meat in the class," he waggled his eyebrows. He winked, then started to squeeze Logan's hand harder. Reacting quickly—and with gratitude for the self-defense training Dad had given him—Logan pressed his index finger against a pressure point in Remus' wrist and he dropped the smaller boy's hand.

"Shit, how'd you do that?"

Logan stared at the hulking boy, wary of retaliation. Remus just rubbed at his hand, not in pain, but perhaps in… surprise? His eyes were wide and he had a ghost of a smile dancing under his mustache. Logan raised his eyebrow. "Do you actually wish to know?"

"Fuck, yes!" he hissed loudly. Mr. Neal cleared his throat from the front of the room, glaring at the two of them. Remus ducked his head and picked up his pencil as though he was taking notes. He whispered, "Will you teach me how to do that? It didn't even hurt."

Ensuring his seat was as close to the edge of the lab bench, and as far from his very physically expressive new lab partner as possible, Logan adjusted his glasses and murmured, "I applied pressure to your radial median nerve that forced you to release me before you could damage my hand or cause pain to my soulmate." Logan glanced at the older boy. "Or to yours."

Remus scoffed. "What the fuck do you care if your soulmate feels your pain? Everybody with a soulmate gets soul pain. It's normal."

"I owe it to them." Logan shook his head, eyes fixed on his paper. "Besides, my soulmate already gets hurt enough for the two of us. They don't need more pain from me."

---

Virgil braced himself for the day's lab assignment. Giving either of his brothers a book of matches rarely ended well.

He tapped Roman's shoulder to draw his attention back from his conversation with the students across the aisle. "Did you hear the instructions?"

"Yeah, sure, we crush the can." He reached for the empty aluminum can in front of them. "Here, I can do it—"

Remus laughed from the table behind them. "No, dude, you gotta heat it up first." The new kid Remus was working with already had shoved a pair of goggles onto his brother’s face and was rolling up his own sleeves, safety glasses that fit over his regular eyeglasses already in place. He was measuring water into the aluminum can and had given Remus the tongs to hold the can over the Bunsen burner.

"Hey, Ro, why don't we try it that way?" Virgil asked, tilting his head toward Remus' table.

Roman picked the book of matches and struck one, reaching for the dial on the burner. "No, wait! We're not ready for the heat yet—" Virgil grabbed at his hand, getting too close to the match and quickly yanked his hand back, popping his burnt finger in his mouth. "Ow, fuck, Ro! You burned me."

Remus had only been half-paying attention to his brothers in front of him, holding the aluminum can over the flame. He did notice, however, when Logan winced and shook his hand at the same time as Virgil. "You all right there, Pocket Protector?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. It will pass." Logan scowled at the taller boy. "And please just call me Logan."

Remus shrugged but narrowed his eyes slightly and chewed on the edge of his mustache as he waited for their aluminum can to begin to emit steam.

The class continued through the experiment and as each table progressed through their work, the sounds of bending aluminum and excited exclamations began to roll across the room. Logan grinned briefly when their can collapsed under the change in pressure when it was removed from the source of heat. He began to log the results in their lab journal, sketching out the crumpled can.

Remus sat back, watching both his lab partner and his brothers at the table in front of them. Finally, he said, "Hey, Nerdy Wolverine—" he smiled innocently at Logan's glare. "What? Wolverine's name is 'Logan.' Anyway, how about we complete another little experiment?"

Logan quickly suppressed a smile and crossed his arms, staring closely at him. "What kind of experiment did you have in mind?"

"This!" Moving too quickly for Logan to stop him, Remus flicked his ear—hard. He grinned when both Logan and Virgil flinched in unison, covering their ears and rubbing the sore skin. "Hey, Virge, you okay?"

Still wincing from the unexpected pain, Virgil turned to face Remus and Logan's table. Roman looked up from where he'd been doodling a large dragon in their lab journal. "That hurt."

"Yeah, I said I was sorry for burning you," Roman whined.

"No, you didn't, and that's not what I'm talking about." Virgil stared at Remus. "What did you do to me?"

Shimmying his shoulders as Logan's face suddenly bloomed in understanding, Remus crowed, "I didn't do anything… to you."

Logan met Virgil's eyes. "I am very sorry about this, but we must be certain," he said before tapping the back of his fingers against the still-hot edge of the Bunsen burner. They both yelped in pain, shaking their hands.

Virgil's eyes filled with tears as he stared at his soulmate smiling at him. His soulmate. He actually had a soulmate. Virgil smiled back at Logan and he barely heard Remus call out to the teacher. “Hey, uh, Mr. Neal, our lab partners got burned… Can they go to the nurse’s office?”

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Mr. Neal waved them on and the younger boys both stood, eyes fixed on each other's. Remus stage whispered to Logan, giving him a little shove toward Virgil. “Take the back staircase down to the office and thank me later.”