Help ive never written emile before

Warnings:

Summary: a needed therapy session, and ...progress

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For the day in honor Virgil had actually changed into clean, sweat and baby-spit-up free clothes, even having done a load of washing the day before to make sure his hoodie was wearable. He knew he did not exactly go to therapy because he was a put together person who knew what he was doing, but it was nice not to look like too much of a mess.

He had loaded everything he could into the stroller he had gotten the day before, Roman driving him to the store to help him look for a good one. Diapers, a bag with formula, a big bottle with boiled water, two baby bottles, a change of clothes, an umbrella, three pacifiers, a towel, a package of wet wipes and a baby jacket in case the blanket didn't warm him enough.

Just... Anything he might need to brave the entire thirty minute bus ride to his therapist, the session, and the thirty minutes back home.

His son was sleeping in the stroller, wrapped up in a blanket, dressed in a brightly blue baby onesie and a pair of purple baby pants, and a pair of pride socks that Roman had knitted.

His knitting crazed boyfriend had presented him with a pair of baby pride socks, with a matching baby pride beanie, and he showed him a picture of an adorably tiny cardigan that was his current project.

Currently he was waiting for the bus to reach his stop, standing up and holding onto a nearby seat tightly to avoid falling as the bus quickly rounded a corner. He had one hand on the stroller to keep it in place, and the other for holding onto the seat to keep himself in place.

He had never been bothered by the bumpy and jerky rides on the bus before, but currently he was stressed that the movements and the noise would wake his son up and make him cry, but so far all was good, and there was only a few minutes left until he would reach his stop.

After he finally got off the bus and walked through the park to the building where his therapy sessions were held he spent a good ten minutes staring at the stairs to the second floor and looking for an elevator.

He had always taken the stairs, but the stroller he was pushing nowadays didn't do great up stairs and he would definitely avoid dragging it up a flight of stairs if he could. He found an elevator eventually, and then walked into the waiting room and paid for his session before sitting down.

He sighed and leaned his chin against the stroller handle, watching the sleeping baby. At least one of them was getting the sleep they needed. He was awfully cute a lot of the time, though, which made it easier to forgive his son from making him wake up every two hours.

It only took a minute or two before his therapist appeared, since it had taken Virgil so long to get up to the second floor, and Virgil stood up.

"Hello, Virgil! And, oh, who's this little cutie?" Emile looked into the stroller, smiling at the sight of the baby and telling his son hi with that kind of high pitched voice that everyone used when talking to pets and babies.

"He's, uh, my son. And I feel like you can now guess why I needed this extra session." Virgil said, giving a strained smile and standing up. Emile paused, then quickly collected themselves.

"Oh. Well, come on in, you can bring the stroller with you." Emile said and smiled much more genuinely, leading him to their office and closing the door behind them. Virgil took the same seat he always did, glad for the fact that he could keep the stroller right next to where he was sitting.

"I assume you have a lot to tell me." Emile said, sitting down in the chair facing Virgil and looking at him curiously as he reached for the rainbow notepad and colorful pen that was lying on the little table next to his chair.

"Oh, yeah." Virgil took his jacket off, sinking back into the chair and looking towards his son with an expression that he assumed was rather tired. "It's kind of a long story."

"So, about a month before I told Logan and Roman that I had feelings for them I had this one date." Virgil began.

"Oh, yeah, I think you mentioned that. It was in an attempt to get over your feelings for Roman and Logan, was it not?" Emile said, tapping his sparkly pink pen against his chin as he thought.

"Can't believe you remember that, it was literally nine months ago." Virgil said.

"Well, it was just a bit out of character for you, as you usually prefer not to meet new people, or practically any people at all, and I feel proud of you any time you step outside your comfort zone." Emile said, smiling again, and Virgil felt pretty sheepish at that. It was always unsettling to have people feeling proud of him, because he very rarely felt that way about himself.

"Oh, um, anyway, so, had a date, which clearly ended, uh, in bed, obviously. Didn't hear from them for, well, about nine months, and then they called me from the hospital a week ago..." Virgil paused, looking at the baby who was sucking his pacifier and still sleeping peacefully.

"That must have been a real shock, you didn't know they were pregnant?" They wondered, frowning and Virgil looked back at his therapist.

"No, had no clue... And yeah, definitely a shock. Not sure I've recovered yet, it still feels very unreal." He said, watching as Emile scribbled something down.

"I can understand that. Having a baby is quite a life changing event, especially if you weren't even prepared at all." Emile said, watching Virgil nervously tug at his hoodie sleeve.

"I'm the least prepared parent you'll ever find. I have no idea what I'm doing, I don't have a clue how I'm supposed to raise another person, and I really don't think I should be allowed to have this kind of responsibility, but it's either be a dad or put him up for adoption." Virgil sighed, looking at his son for a long moment until his therapist spoke up again.

"And how do you feel about that? Are you considering adoption?" Emile wondered, of course making him have to give an answer to the question that he had been thinking about for the past six days. They were great at making him have to think about things that he wanted to ignore and leave for later, but he supposed that was kind of the purpose of a therapist.

"I don't know." He said, which was probably the three words he said the most often while talking to his therapist, which was very unhelpful for the both of them and made Virgil feel bad for just sitting there wasting his therapists time, but there was so much he just didn't know what he thought or felt about it.

Unfortunately Emile's response to vague answers such as 'I don't know' was to stay silent and look at him expectantly, which meant that either Virgil had to elaborate or he would be stuck in an awkward silence.

"I mean... maybe it would be the right thing to do? If he would end up with parents who can take better care of him than I will, then... it would be the right choice, wouldn't it?" Virgil dared some eye contact with Emile, trying to read on them what they thought.

"Maybe, but it's not guaranteed that he will be adopted, is it? But you know that."

"Yeah, and even if he's adopted that doesn't mean he will get parents that unconditionally love him. My parents always loved me, at least until my sexuality became just too confusing to deal with. At least I'll always love him no matter how complicated his identity might ever be." Virgil mumbled, eyes on his son again.

"Oh, you love him, that's lovely to hear." Emile said, pressing their hands together happily.

"I mean... of course I do. He's my son and no matter how scared and sleep deprived I am... how am I supposed to not love him? Like, you know that thing they always show in movies where babies hold their parent's finger? Yeah, that one will really get to you. And he's just, you know, counting on me to keep him safe and I don't know what I would do with myself if he was ever hurt." He said.

He didn't exactly know how to explain his feelings about his son, because it was not as if he knew him well or anything, it had only been six days and his son was a baby. But six days were definitely enough for him to feel like he would protect the newborn with his life if he needed to.

"I don't think adoption will be an option." He said after a long pause. He hadn't really wanted to make a decision, because he was so scared of making the wrong one, but it was hard to ignore the fact that he most likely couldn't go through with giving his son up and leaving him with someone else.

"If that's not what you want then you don't have to consider it as an option. As long as you have the financial means then I think that you will be as capable a parent as anyone else." They said and Virgil nodded.

"I'm pretty confident that I'll manage when it comes to money, actually. My money spending anxiety makes sure I always have a nice amount of backup money saved, just in case." Virgil said, making awkward finger guns.

His son gave a low cry from the stroller and Virgil immediately pulled it a bit closer to try and see what the issue was, praying that it wasn't a poopy diaper. He picked the pacifier up from where it had fallen from the baby's mouth and offered it back to him, which luckily seemed to solve his son's current problem.

He moved the stroller just slightly backwards and forwards, to imitate that he was being rocked back to sleep, which thankfully worked.

"What's his name?" Emile then asked once the baby seemed to be asleep and the two of them dared to talk again.

"I don't know. It's my responsibility to name him but-" Virgil looked down at the baby, "I don't know how to name someone. That's a huge responsibility."

"What if I name him something and he hates it and grows up despising me?" He said, which was definitely a stupid fear of his but a fear non the less.

"Seems unlikely, and if he would hate the name then he would likely tell you that some day, and then you can change his name to something he likes." Emile said, which of course was true. If he gave his son a name and he would later tell Virgil he didn't like it and wanted to change it then Virgil would hardly put up a fight about it.

"Well, yeah, if he wanted to change his name it would be his choice, but I still don't want to fuck it up." He said with a huff.

"Well, I'd say it's impossible to be a parent without fucking up now and then, but as long as your son always knows he's safe and loved no matter what then smaller fuck ups doesn't really matter, do they?" Emile pointed out.

"No parent is perfect, no matter what there will be difficult moments and times where you will do the wrong thing. Maybe get angry when you don't need to, or say something that will be unintentionally hurtful..." Emile began, and after all these months he had been seeing Emile he could tell that a cartoon analogy was coming.

"Like how in Steven Universe Greg and the gems always did their best to raise Steven but still ended up hurting him sometimes, like that time when Greg pretended that Steven's healing power didn't work and that his leg was still broken, just so that he could keep living with Steven."

"He did it because he enjoyed living and spending time with his son, but it still resulted in Steven losing confidence in his healing powers and because of that no longer being able to heal people with his spit. Now, despite his dad's mistake he was forgiven, isn't he?" Emile finished his ramble and Virgil sighed and nodded.

"Yeah, I know. Can't do everything right." He muttered, thinking that he should be able to do everything right, in a fair world. It wasn't very nice to know that it was impossible to be a perfect parent, because a perfect parent was exactly what his son deserved, it was why Virgil had been considering adoption in the first place.

"So, how is being a dad so far? Does he cry a lot?" Emile wondered.

"No, honestly not, but I am." Virgil said with a weak chuckle at the attempt at the joke. Though, was it a joke if it was true? He had definitely been crying more than usual lately.

"And crying is a healthy way of dealing with your emotions, we've been over this." Emile said with a pointed look. They had talked about Virgil's view of himself as a crybaby before.

"I'm just not ready, like, I'm too young for this, I can't be left in charge of a baby." He said, aware that he sounded a little desperate but not caring because he was in fact a lot desperate.

"Virgil, you are twenty three, that is a fairly normal age to have a child. You wouldn't believe how many couples decide to have a baby when they're between twenty to twenty five." Emile said, which Virgil wasn't entirely sure how it was supposed to calm him, because other people his age were generally more put together than he was anyway.

"Well, I'm not a couple who has planned this, am I? Jamie never even told me that they were pregnant, which leaves me in a worse shape than any idiot because at least even the unprepared parents would have stocked up on baby things for weeks in advance and probably would have read at least one book about baby care. I know nothing, Emile." He rambled.

"I mean, of course I've been panic-reading and panic-buying anything I can find, but still. Out of nowhere I'm an entirely unprepared single parent, and I don't know how to deal with it, this isn't the kind of situation where you can afford to fuck up, is it?" He said.

Sure, he had done somewhat fine so far, but he was terrified of doing things wrong, when he actually got some sleep he had nightmares about dropping the baby or doing any little thing wrong and finding that it was a fatal mistake.

"Oh, well, are you really alone? What about Roman and Logan? How's your fusion doing?" Emile wondered and Virgil sank back into the chair which he had straightened himself up in while rambling.

"Well, yeah, I still got them and they've been very understanding and helpful so far but... How long is that really gonna last? Will they really want to stay around now? I've got a baby, I don't have time for dates and I'm constantly sleep deprived, and it's not like any of us signed up for this." He folded his arms over his chest.

"So, you think they will break up with you?" Emile said and Virgil shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

He didn't like talking about this, it was much nicer to ignore the surely steadily approaching end to their relationship and try to feel happy that Roman and Logan were still by his side so far. Though, as the anxious and pessimistic person he was, it was not easy.

"Well, what are the chances that they won't? We've been together for eight months in, like, a week which, while longer than I had dared hope we would last, still isn't a huge amount of time. We haven't exactly talked much about stuff like kids yet, though Logan once mentioned that he's not very fond of them." Virgil said unhappily.

That wasn't something he had cared about before, because he had had no plans on having kids, not even known if he would ever want any, but now he had a baby whose feelings were more important than any of his boyfriends or his own. If his boyfriends didn't want a kid around then dating them would not work out.

"Hm, alright, well, how have they been so far?" Emile wondered and Virgil bit his lip, feeling stupid for being so sure that they would leave him when, so far, they had given him no indication that that was what they wanted. But it was impossible not to think that this was what would end their relationship.

"Well, okay, they've both been wonderful. They went with me to the hospital and they helped me buy a ton of baby stuff and Logan came over to watch the baby so I could sleep and Roman has knitted baby clothes... They're probably the reason why I've made it this far."

Actually, they were definitely the reason he had made it this far.

"So, maybe you can admit that it's possible that they won't break up with you and everything will work out?" Emile asked him, which was very annoying because he had to agree that it was possible that things would work out, even if he didn't think those chances had much going for them.

"I guess." He said, which seemed to satisfy his therapist enough. "But with my boyfriends or not, the problem still stands that I'm really overwhelmed and unprepared and... scared about the whole being a parent thing."

"This sounds a lot like when Rose gave up her physical form to have Steven, leaving Greg alone to take care of a baby with not much of an idea what he was doing!" Emile said enthusiastically.

"Really?" Virgil said doubtfully, not remembering that episode particularly well except for the part where the gems kidnapped baby Steven in their struggle to deal with Rose having disappeared for good and baby Steven not just being her but shape shifted.

"Yeah! Greg is clearly struggling with suddenly having a son and being a single parent. He panicked when Steven's gem glowed, feeling unsure if human babies were supposed to be able to glow or not because he knew so little about babies, he was also panic-reading baby books and didn't feel like he knew what he was doing, which I think seem pretty accurate to how you seem to be feeling, suddenly left alone with a baby that you need to take care of." Emile explained, seeming near giddy to talk about his favorite cartoons.

As always.

"Oh, yeah. I guess that's kind of like this. I don't really remember that much of the episode." Virgil said with a shrug, which seemed to almost make Emile gasp.

"Well that just means it's time for a rewatch!" They said. "Maybe the show will be a comfort in this trying time."

"Hah, yeah, I can watch it with the baby." Virgil said. It was a bit of a joke, but maybe it would actually be a nice thing to do.

"I think that's a great idea. Not only will you be raising your son on high quality cartoons, you will also be having some bonding time with the baby. I can't say I'm a baby expert, but I do know that babies need bonding time with their parents -or, well, parent. And cuddling with your son while doing something you enjoy seems like a very good way of doing some bonding." Emile said, nodding approvingly.

"Yeah, I suppose so." He said.

"Should have the time to watch cartoons, honestly. Taking a week of vacation right now until my paternity leave kicks in, so I have months of alone time with the baby to look forward to. I mean, I feel constantly stressed out and it feels like there's a million things I need to do all the time, but I honestly don't do that much in between making sure the baby is happy and trying to sleep." Virgil said with a shrug.

"About everything that is overwhelming you, do you think it would help if we made a list of the things that are stressing you? It might not all feel as overwhelming and impossible to deal with if you have a more concrete idea of what it is you're dealing with than just going with the panic-y feeling of having a million things to do and worry about." Emile wondered, describing his feelings perfectly.

"Yeah, that could help." Virgil said. Not because he really believed it, but it had helped before, which, as Logan would say, logically meant that it could work again.

"Alright, great, we will list things up like Aquamarine with her list of names of people to collect! ...It's not a perfect metaphor, I'll work on it. So why don't you tell me stuff to write down for you?" Emile said, turning a page in his notebook until he found an empty one.

"Right, um, well I have to decide if I'm going to be a dad or put him up for adoption," he began, watching as Emile immediately wrote it down, mumbling the words they were writing, "and I need to name him, especially if I'm keeping him."

"I need to read a ton of baby books, I need to sleep more. Um, I need to make sure I don't accidentally kill this kid with my inexperience. I have to rethink the future I've imagined for myself, and I have to find out how to find a good daycare because eventually I will have to go back to work, and I need to learn when babies go from formula to baby food... Ugh, there's just so much stuff." Virgil complained.

Emile finished the list, making an obvious dot to finish it off.

"See, now we got a nice list of things, which means that you can choose one at the time to tackle. Though, some of these are kind of big things to ask of yourself, like 'making sure you don't accidentally kill your son with your inexperience' would probably be easier to deal with if you broke it down into smaller tasks that are actually manageable and less vague." Emile instructed, writing something down.

"See, you could make it into several smaller tasks, like reading a chapter from a baby care book every day, or taking the time to practice self care to make sure you're in good shape and not too sleep deprived, and making sure to have bonding and cuddle time with your son because babies need affection like they need food from what I've understood..." Emile said, trailing off as they spoke.

"Yeah, I've read about that. Believe me, I've been holding him all the time." Virgil said. Even if it wasn't important to hold babies he would be holding his son anyway, because holding him just felt right and the little weight in his arms was comforting.

"I would like you to choose one of these tasks to do until next time, it will be like your homework, and you will feel less stressed and better about your situation when you feel like you are making progress." Emile said.

"Okay, fine." He said, and Emile ripped the list out of the notebook and handed it to him. Virgil looked through the list, already thinking of more to add to it, but that wasn't what he was supposed to do right now.

"I guess I could try to find him a name. Like, at least try some names out, see if anything feels right." He said and shrugged.

"Good, that's a really good idea! There's tons of baby name sites you can look through, if you need inspiration." Emile advised him.

"Mhm, I think I'll do that. Got no good name ideas on the top of my head." He had been trying to think a bit about names, only to come to the conclusion that he knew no good names and that going through name lists had seemed overwhelming. Maybe some pressure to actually get it done would help.

"Oh, "Emile said after a glance at the clock on the wall, "that's unfortunately all the time we have for today, but I can book you a session for next week."

"Oh, yeah, that'd probably be good." Virgil said. Maybe he would go back to weekly or biweekly session, instead of the session every month that he had been doing lately.

"For what it's worth, Virgil, I think that you will be a very good parent, if that is the road you decide to go down." Emile said, giving him a smile that was more comforting than it maybe should be. But his therapist, who knew what kind of a mess he actually was, thinking he would be alright as a parent, felt pretty good.

He said goodbye to Emile and left, the list in his pocket. About as soon as he had taken the elevator down to the ground floor his son began crying, and this time putting the pacifier back into his mouth didn't help.

He groaned and pushed the stroller outside, thankfully finding a bench where he could pause and look through his things to find one of the baby bottles. He added the formula and the water and shook it well, then bent over the stroller to offer him the bottle.

He didn't want it and Virgil set it aside on the bench, pulling the blanket off of the baby to check his diaper and grumbling unhappily at seeing that he needed a clean one. At least the sidewalk he had been walking down was hardly crowded, the two of them were the only people there.

Eventually the two of them were back home and Virgil washed his hands and changed his jeans into a pair of sweatpants that were much more comfortable, and less sweaty since he had had to take on the stairs. The elevator was still broken and he was really thankful that he only lived on the third floor and not the eight.

He let his son stay in the stroller in the hallway as he quickly found a frozen pizza to leave on the counter as the oven preheated, then he returned to the baby and lifted him up in his arms together with the bottle he had prepared earlier. Virgil seated himself in the kitchen while waiting for the oven to heat.

"You hungry yet?" He asked, holding up the bottle to show him. He shook the bottle again, then pulled the pacifier from his son's mouth. It made him cry, to no surprise of Virgil, and he quickly replaced the pacifier with the bottle.

It took a minute of crying before his son seemed to realize that he actually did want the bottle, which had Virgil releasing a nervous breath because he had worried he had fucked up and would have to deal with a crying baby for the next few hours.

"See, there we go, knew you'd be hungry by now." He said with a small smile, feeling a squeeze in his chest as his son's tiny fingers grasped his pinky.

He fed the baby, then fixed himself his pizza, and then sat down on the couch with his son to watch a few episodes of Steven Universe while he ate. See, he was nailing this self care thing, eating and doing something he enjoyed.

Virgil looked over at the baby who was lying on the couch next to where he was sitting, looking up in the general direction of Virgil and holding the baby blue teddy bear that his boyfriends had insisted on getting him.

"Alright," Virgil said once the third episode ended, putting his almost empty plate onto the living room table and digging his phone out of his pocket, "should we get that stupid homework started then?"

He googled baby name sites, finding about a billion of them. He clicked on a random one, scrolling through it. He didn't know what he wanted, which made it really difficult to know where to start. It would definitely be easier if he knew he wanted something starting on a particular letter or something to do with Greek mythology or constellations or from a favorite tv show or gender neutral.

It would help if he would have had any idea what kind of names Jamie might have considered.

"Alright, tiny one, what's your name? Are you a Finnigan? Casper? ...I don't think so." He kept scrolling, dismissing some names immediately.

"Okay, some of these name's suck. As if I'm gonna name you Chad or Bradley, that's just dooming you to become a bully." Virgil said, then realizing that, oh god, it was his job to raise this baby to adulthood and he would be a major impact on what kind of person his son grew up to be.

Forcing that absolutely terrifying thought away to deal with some other time he looked back to the list of names, ignoring that his son had just spit his pacifier out, because he didn't seem unhappy about it.

"Ryan? Are you a Ryan? No, I don't think so." He returned to the name list, looking at the next one.

"James? Taylor? Avery? Charlie? Ehh, none of those seem any good, do they?" He raised his brow and looked at his son who just drooled a bit.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if you could like... talk, or understand me at all. Umm, how about Riley? It's not horrible so I'll add it to a maybe-list." He said, switching to his notes app where he then added one more name.

"I've met too many people who have names, and some of these names really don't feel like baby names, you know? But some names don't feel like adult names, and you'll be all grown up one day, I suppose." He said, then paused and sighed.

"Honestly, is talking to a baby better than talking to yourself? ...Well, anything's better than having a full on conversation with yourself and answering yourself, probably, because that will really make people look at you funny if you forget about your surroundings and accidentally do it in public." He told the baby.

"Which is totally not based on my own experiences. Anyway, Jacob? ...No, I had an asshole classmate named that. Alistair? Would be kind of cool but I had an asshole boss named that, cause I've met too many assholes." He said with the classic talking-to-a-baby voice, then pausing and thinking over his choice of words.

"Should probably not say words like that in front of a baby, should I? But then again it's kind of weird to expect you not to swear when bad words are half my vocabulary. Honestly, your first word will probably be a swear." He said.

Was talking to his infant son weird? Even if it was, fuck it. It was probably good in some way, how was he supposed to learn words without hearing them? Actually, this had to just be one of his irrational fears that everything he did made him insane in the eyes of others.

"Ugh, okay, how do we feel about Cyrus? No. Oh, honestly, who would name a baby Alfred, why are some of these names on the list?" He said and snorted. "Donald, Edward, Gideon? Come on."

"Oh, Cas? It's going on the list, together with Castiel. Okay, so I watched Supernatural when I was a teen, so sue me." He said, typing it down even if he felt like the actual universe was judging him from considering naming his child after a gay angel.

"How about Patton?" He looked over at the baby, who made an expression that Virgil could only take as a smile before drooling some more.

"Aw, that's cute, you like that one? Well, it's on the maybe-list." He shook his head and smiled, turning back to the name list, ignoring that he knew very well that his son had no idea what he was talking about and probably didn't have a clue what smiling really was either.

He sat there for another ten minutes, reading names and adding some more to his list before he decided that he definitely needed a break from it. He read through the list of names he had, pronouncing them all out loud a few times to decide which he should try first.

"You know what, we'll start with Patton. It feels like it shouldn't work, but it sounds kind of cute actually." He said, glancing at his son, almost looking for approval. The baby- no, Patton, for now, simply laid there, having a few fingers in his mouth.

"Okay, Patton. We'll try that for a day or a few and see if it fits, huh? Yeah, we'll do that. Can work through the list if we need to." He said, pulling at his son's tiny arm and exchanging the tiny baby fingers with the pacifier.

"Alright," he put his phone to the side, carefully lifting him into his arms again now that they were food and phone free, "what do you say, Patton, wanna watch some more Steven Universe?"

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Written: 25h, 26th, 29th, 30th & 31st May 2022
Published: 1st June 2022
Words: 5623

ok but honestly who would name a baby patton

anyway names are hard, finding the name im trying took months, i had a whole list with like 20 names and then one evening i was half asleep and then it just popped into my head out of nowhere and i stared at the ceiling like oh okay then. fun fact i checked my list after and the name was actually already on it

...and my middle name is roman cause i used the name when playing among us bc obviously im a huge tss nerd and i was like....i like it when ppl call me this lmao