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William is having a wonderful time not sleeping and totally isolating himself from the rest of the group. Really, he is.
Hidden - rather pathetically - in the next room over, he sits hunched near a wall. Close enough that he could lean back against it if he really wants to, but he’s not going to right now. Thinking ahead, and all that.
He shouldn’t be surprised that someone comes to find him. He shouldn’t be surprised it’s Dakota.
And he’s not, if he’s honest with himself. Although, he might be a little disappointed that someone has broken his self-pitying, introspective bubble. Even if, logically, he knows he’ll be glad for it later.
Dakota didn’t even give him long enough to write his diary entry.
He sits next to William, cross-legged. Opens his mouth to speak. And William’s expecting some more comforting along the lines of earlier in the day but instead-
“I knew you wouldn’t have the balls to kiss Vyncent.”
William instantly feels the entire range of the embarrassment spectrum tear through his body.
“You were wat-? Wait, dude, shut the fuck up!” He shoves Dakota, although it doesn’t really do anything. “It’s more than- there’s more going on than just that, okay?”
“Uh-huh.” Dakota says, unbelievingly. “Sure.”
“You-“ he covers his face in embarrassment, sure that he’d be blushing if he could. “You don’t even know what’s going on.”
“Hm, sure I do.” Dakota throws an arm around his shoulder. “You and Vyncent are in gay, gay love and-“
“Whoa, okay, love is- we don’t know that Vyncent loves me.”
“Ha!” Dakota claps his shoulder. “But you love him? Confirmed?”
“Well, I- I don’t- I love you , too!”
William winces after the words tumble from his mouth and bites his tongue to stop himself from digging this hole any further. The only reason he doesn’t go intangible is that he’s afraid he won’t be able to reverse it.
“That’s different.” Dakota says, waving a hand absently.
“I mean…”
Dakota pulls back to look at him properly, raising his eyebrows.
“You mean…?”
And for the second time that night, William’s courage abandons him.
“Yeah,” he says with a shaky laugh, “yeah, it’s different.”
“Look.” Dakota throws his arm around William’s shoulder again. “I can totally wingman you for Vyncent.”
“I don’t want that.”
William feels a little like he’s crumbling. Maybe the decomposing process is based on how much psychic damage he’s taking, because he is currently taking a lot .
“You think I’d be bad?” Dakota laughs. “Fuck you, man.”
“It didn’t work with Summer.”
“Yeah, but Summer’s not weird like we all are.”
“Look. Dakota.” He shrugs Dakota’s arm off of him. “I appreciate the offer, but I really don’t need a wingman.”
“Whatever you say, man. But feel free to come crawling back to me for help.”
“You know what?” William feels a righteous defensiveness course through him. “What would you know? You haven’t even dated anyone!”
Dakota may’ve been a cool, popular kid in school, but William knows the closest thing he’s had to a date is - well, he’s not about to bring it up now. Or ever, in this context. But the point is, Dakota knows about as much as him - less than, even, since he’s never really shown any genuine interest in dating.
“I don’t even need to, dude,” Dakota leans back against the wall, “I’m just that cool. Like… I knew about your crush on Vyncent, and that Vyncent probably has a crush on you. And that you’d be too scared to kiss him-“
“Yeah, well, did you know about this? ”
And then in an incredible feat of impulsivity, William puts one hand on Dakota’s cheek to keep him steady and kisses the other.
He pulls back to see Dakota’s mouth hanging open, his face as red as his hair.
“Okay, wait- uh, I- I can explain-“ William cuts himself off, not really having any kind of explanation in mind.
Dakota’s mouth clicks shut. He hovers a hand over his cheek.
“Did, uh… did you just… do that to prove your point?”
Eager for the out, William latches onto it.
“Yeah! Yes. Yeah, sorry. I shouldn’t have… done that. Sorry.”
“Oh.”
William knows what Dakota sounds like when he’s disappointed. He’s not sure why he’s hearing that now.
“It- it really was an accident.” William laughs shakily. “Heat of the moment thing, and all that. You- you know?”
“Yeah. It’s fine, dude.” Dakota waves him off with one hand and covers a yawn with the other, his face still red. Then he jumps to his feet. “I think I gotta go to sleep now, man. You stay up way too fucking late”
“Oh- uh, yeah!” William scrambles to stand up. “You’re right, I should… probably go to sleep, too.”
As they get ready for bed, William pins Dakota’s quietness down as tiredness. It’s the only way he can shut his brain up enough to get to sleep.
The argument does not hold up the next day, where William becomes hyper aware that something is up with Dakota. It’s not quietness anymore, though. William can’t really put his finger on it.
Which means he has to figure it out.
It’s not avoidance, either. Not exactly. But throughout the day William becomes increasingly aware that Dakota seems to have a talent for redirecting or shutting down a conversation without people really noticing. Or if they do, they don’t notice it’s intentional - he can be a fairly spontaneous person, after all.
No, it’s not exactly avoidance. It’s just Dakota making sure he’s never in a conversation with William alone. It’s him making sure Vyncent is always standing in between them.
The only thing throwing William off is that whenever Dakota thinks attention is not on him - whenever he doesn’t particularly have anything to add to a conversation - his eyes will glaze over. He’ll scrunch his face up like he does whenever he’s thinking too hard about something and it’ll take William or Vyncent a couple tries of calling his name before he snaps back into reality.
William can understand the avoidance. He just doesn’t know what Dakota’s thinking about.
It could be a number of things. He could be currently weighing up his friendship with William because William fucked up and made him uncomfortable. He could be trying to figure out if William was lying about just doing it to prove a point. He could be thinking about something entirely irrelevant and William’s just overthinking it.
By the end of the day, William’s racked up a life-sentence’s worth of anxiety. And it’s strange, actually, the way it now doesn’t manifest as anything other than racing thoughts in his mind.
He didn’t think he’d miss the churning in his stomach. And he had gotten used to the lack of a racing pulse a little bit after he first died, but with the recent news about his decaying body he’s mourning it all over again.
He’s getting distracted.
He needs to talk to Dakota. Alone.
But if William has learnt anything since developing a crush on Vyncent it’s that he’s the most oblivious person in the world. It is more difficult than it should be to send Vyncent away without raising any alarms for either him or Dakota.
In the end, Vyncent leaves with a promise to bring back food. For a brief moment William is incredibly glad he doesn’t feel hunger anymore because he is certain that means Vyncent is going to go hunt for rats.
The door closes and William spins around, noticing Dakota eyeing him with suspicion.
Dakota opens his mouth - probably to say something that will allow him to disengage from being alone with William.
So William hastily blurts out, “I need to talk to you.”
Dakota raises his eyebrows like he’s not really sure why, but he sits down on one of the beds. William briefly feels his world implode as he realises he’ll have to decide between sitting next to Dakota or sitting on a different bed.
He decides to sit next to Dakota, if only because it’ll be easier to talk that way. He leaves enough room that Dakota hopefully won’t be uncomfortable.
“I’m, uh…” Despite how long he’s had to think about this, he never really came up with a game plan, “I’m sorry for upsetting you.”
Dakota frowns, confused.
“You didn’t upset me.”
“Then what’s with today, huh? You’ve practically been avoiding me all day, man.”
Dakota’s silent for a while. William’s not sure if it’s because he’s formulating a response or hoping William will leave him alone. But just in case it’s the former, he stays.
“I, um…” Dakota hugs his knees to his chest. “I really like you, William.”
“You- what?”
“I mean- I dunno, it’s weird. It’s different, I think.”
“ You like me? ”
“Yeah, I think so.” Dakota clutches at the material of his pants. “I dunno exactly. It’s not… how everyone said it would be. So today I was, like, trying to think about it? I just wanted, um… space. To figure it out.”
“Oh.”
William cringes. Not the best answer he could’ve given to that confession. And it’s made even more obvious in the way Dakota’s face falls.
“ Fuck .” Dakota’s hands tighten. “I shouldn’t- I shouldn’t have said that. I know you have, like, your thing with Vyncent, and I don’t wanna ruin that-”
“No it’s, um- there’s not really anything to, uh… to ruin.”
“Well, I also didn’t want to ruin what we had.” Dakota shrugs. “Me and Vyncent - we’re good friends, yeah? But he, like, kills people. Sometimes.”
The bluntness of it shocks a laugh out of William.
“Yeah. He does.”
“So, you’re like… a good balance, I think. What we all have now is good. And I didn’t want to-“ Dakota cuts himself off with a frustrated growl. “You and Vyncent have your gay thing going on with your movies. But you also have your taking down the system and your ten months alone together . And I don’t really know where I fit into that? Sometimes? I didn’t want to, like, fuck up the dynamic and give you guys a reason to kick me out.”
“Dakota, we would never- we would never kick you out.”
“Hm.” Dakota sounds unconvinced. “Okay.”
“Seriously, dude! I mean, I’ve got a gay thing going on with you, too.” He pauses. “Wait, fuck- what I mean is- I really like you. You know… as well.”
“Really?” Dakota’s face turns red. “What’s it, um, what’s it like for you?”
“I mean… it’s not like it’s normal for me, either. I can’t really do the whole,” he waves his hand around absently, “ blushing, heart racing thing, can I?”
“Hm,” Dakota scans him over, “that’s true.”
“It’s- I dunno.” He takes a moment to try to put it into words. “It’s kind of cringe, but… I just… think it’d be nice if we were boyfriends. And went on dates, and held hands, and stuff.”
Dakota’s eyes glaze over and his face scrunches up as he thinks about it. It’s cute.
And before William can spend too much time overthinking, Dakota blinks - his entire face lighting up as he says, “that sounds cool!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Dakota grabs his hand. “We’re boyfriends now.”
“Oh!” He didn’t think it’d be this easy. “Wow, okay.”
This feels… kind of surreal, actually.
“You’re still, like, in gay love with Vyncent.”
It’s not a question.
“I mean… yeah?” It’s not like he’s really had enough time to try and get over him. “I’m not gonna like… try and date him behind your back or anything, though.”
“At the rate you’re going?” Dakota laughs. “You’re not even gonna be able to date him in front of me.”
“Dude.” He tries to shove Dakota. As always, it fails. “I got one boyfriend pretty successfully, okay? You can’t make fun of me anymore.”
“Whatever.” Dakota shuffles over to lean up against him. “You still took a major L with Vyncent, though.”
William feels a whole new worry sprout - what if Vyncent walks in on them like this? What’s he going to say when they tell him they’re dating now? Is he going to feel left out? Or is he just going to be chill with it and William’s freaking out over nothing.
He’s not going to tell Dakota to move, though. He doesn’t think Dakota could keep a secret like this to save his life. He doesn’t even really want to keep it a secret.
“Does it bother you? That I like him?” William asks.
“Not really.” Dakota shrugs. “It’s not like I’m gonna kiss you.”
“ Really? ” He cringes at his own disbelief and tries to quickly backtrack. “Wait, I mean, like- like that’s fair. That’s cool. You don’t… have to. Or anything. Can I- can I ask, um, why?”
Dakota’s expression twists into one of disgust.
“Kissing seems gross, dude.”
“Oh. That’s fair.”
“We can do, uh,” Dakota leans closer and presses a kiss to his cheek, “like that. That’s fine.”
“Cool.” His voice comes out strained. “Cool, that works.”
He feels a little like he’s going to faint. His current body was not rebuilt to handle this much affection towards someone else, apparently.
Dakota, content with the conversation ending there, brings up how they should track down a way to play Mario Kart. Because he hasn’t played it in ages and he thinks it’ll be fun. William can already tell that whatever outcome happens will be hell. It does sound fun, though.
Vyncent comes back not too long after that. He’s carrying two plastic bags - one that looks like it could be holding rats and another that William assumes contains things he stole. They should probably try and find a way to get money soon, huh?
Before either William or Vyncent can get a word out, Dakota excitedly announces that he’s dating William. This is about how he expected it to go, but he still feels a sense of dread at Vyncent’s potential reaction.
Vyncent just looks confusedly between them both for a second, though. Then shrugs, says congratulations, and moves on to excitedly explain what he got for dinner.
William was right. It does include rats.