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When Ted comes over to sleep at Bill's house, crammed onto his twin-sized mattress, whispering new lyrics for Wyld Stallyn to one another, he wonders how anyone could ever think this to be less than perfect. Not that either of them had ever thought that, but Bill wonders how anyone could even think about coming to that conclusion.
With Ted's back resting against the wall and Bill resting against the bed's headrest, the two share a comfortable silence until Ted says something that he doesn't pay attention to.
"Huh?" he asks.
"I said, truth or dare dude?" Ted's staring at the ceiling that Bill knows is just a plain white. It takes another few seconds for it to register.
"Really, truth or dare?" Bill scoffs. "What're we, chicks, dude?"
His friend removes his eyes from the ceiling, instead looking back down at Bill, who has to look away. His face is starting to feel most warm despite the chilly autumn air outside.
"Got anything better to do?"
"Uh, yeah. We could be writing some totally excellent lyrics right now. Wyld Stallyn seems to be in a most heinous musical drought right now."
Ted remains silent, staring back up at the ceiling. Bill takes a quick peak above just to make sure he wasn't missing something that his friend wasn't telling him about.
"Okay, fine, dare," Bill says, causing Ted to look back down and move his hands to rest on his own knees. "But you better not dare me to eat a penny again."
Ted extends his arm out so his hand is hovering in the air a few inches away from Bill's face, palm upwards. Bill tries to swallow the lump he feels curving its way up his throat.
"Bill, my friend, I dare you to hold my hand the rest of the game."
Bill, who has never been one to turn down a dare (even the ones that were most non-non-heinous), holds up his own hand and brings it straight down onto Ted's palm. Their fingers intertwine and tighten around one another, and Bill waves his free hand like a gladiator challenging his opponent.
The gravity of the situation finally hits him and he can feel his face getting even warmer. "What if I gotta go to the bathroom, dude?" he asks, trying to ignore the situation at hand.
"A dare's a dare, dude. Unless you wanna be seen as a chicken." Ted shoots him a smirk and Bill scoffs.
"No way, Ted, my friend. Your turn: truth or dare?"
"Truth," Ted says after a moment of thinking.
Bill takes another moment to think, more expecting Ted to have answered with dare. "Okay, well, what do you think about the princesses?"
"What do you mean?" Ted asks with a squint in his eyes from confusion. Bill can feel Ted squeeze his hands against his own. "They're our bandmates, and pretty rockin' ones at that."
Bill averts his eyes, embarrassment rising to his mind, staring up at the spot on the ceiling that Ted had been looking at.
"Yeah they're pretty rockin'. But how do you feel about them?" Bill pauses, expecting a quick answer to stab him through his lungs. When he hears nothing, he curiously peaks out of the corner of his eye and sees Ted looking up at the ceiling as well. "Do you think they're rockin' in more ways than just the rock and roll type?"
Ted laughs, a deep rumble that Bill feels through their connected hands. "They are most excellent band members. When we met them at that castle, I did think they were some bodacious babes," he says, then pauses. "Though, I do think we're better as bandmates than girlfriend and boyfriend."
"Most definitely," adds Bill. "They were smokin' babes, but I do have to admit that we just weren't that compatible."
Ted nods once. "Yeah," he says, resolutely with no trace of sadness in his voice. "Truth or dare?"
Bill can feel Ted's palm and his own, conjoined and warm, and figures he doesn't want to be embarrassed anymore around his most esteemed friend, so he picks truth.
When Ted looks him in the eyes, it makes his stomach twist like it does when he drinks a Big Gulp in under a minute. "Have you ever worried that we're straying off course? Like, what we're destined to do with all that 'save the world' stuff?"
Ted looks away suddenly, as if he surprised himself with the question, something from so deep in his psyche. Bill shakes his head. "Ted, my friend, I think that if we're doing something so monumentally off-course, they'll just send Rufus over to us to fix it." Bill squeezes his hand in reassurance. "Trust me, dude. If we're doing something wrong, they'd have sent someone our way by now."
Bill catches his gaze after a moment and smiles at him, which Ted returns back."Truth or dare, dude?" he asks, but feels like the words get caught in his throat.
"Truth," Ted says.
Bill has nothing particularly exciting planned for truths. Dares, he could give and do dares like they were pennies he found on the street, but truths required more thought than Bill really wanted to put into a party game for teens. So he blurts out the first thing on his mind.
"Have you ever thought about kissing a dude?" Bill immediately rubs his free down his face and groans.
"Bill, my most esteemed colleague, I have thought about it more than you can imagine," Ted answers, causing Bill to raise his head and glance cautiously at his friend. "There are some bodacious babes out there, but there's also a lot of bodacious guy babes, if you catch my drift.
"Not to mention some of those historical figures were pretty smokin'," Ted adds.
Bill pushes down every ounce of his mind that screams at him that Ted (his most trusted, smartest, most esteemed best friend) has, in fact, thought about kissing a guy. No, not just one dude - multiple dudes. Were one of those guys him? he wonders. He's definitely thought about kissing Ted on more than one sleepless night, when his friend's face was turned towards him while he slept, face the same peacefulness as it always is.
"Truth or dare?" Ted asks.
Despite his internal freakout happening, Bill manages to squeak out a truth.
He's not too sure if he could handle any dare that Ted would send his way. Sometimes, out of the blue, he would be dared to eat a coin or lick a wall, or other gross stuff that Ted (and, occasionally, the princesses when they were curious) made him do. What with their current game going the way it was, Bill's not too sure he won't combust on the spot.
"Have you ever thought about it, dude?" Ted asks, nudging his elbow into Bill's arm. Their hands, clasped together, rest in the dip between their thighs, which were also pressing close together.
Well, Bill definitely thought there were some smoking dudes in San Dimas, as his friend had said. But had he ever thought about kissing any of them? The only dude Bill had ever let himself entertain the idea of kissing was his best friend: the one he was currently holding hands with.
Bill wills himself not to freak out again, wants to wipe his hand on his pants but not wanting to risk breaking his dare. He realizes he must have been quiet for a beat too long as Ted shoves him.
"What's the matter, dude? Got caught up in the nostalgia of those most bodacious dude babes?" Ted asks, a mocking laugh in his tone that only makes Bill's heart squeeze.
Bill shoves him back even harder. "Nu-uh, dude. Just trying to remember all of them."
"Oh, so you're saying that there's more than one?"
Bill places a hand to his chest. "It's like you said, Ted, my most esteemed friend. There were a lot of smoking dudes we met when we time traveled. They did smell most unsavory, though." He takes a moment to mentally calm himself down. "Okay, truth or dare? I'm kinda getting into this now that you've brought out the big questions."
"I'm feeling most courageous right about now, Bill, my friend, so I pick dare." There's a jokingness in his tone that Bill feels like he loves, despite it being directed to him.
"I dare you to dance, dude."
"What, like, any dance moves?"
"Yeah, dude. Anything."
Ted looks to contemplate something for a moment silently, before standing up and sliding to the ground. He drags along Bill with him, their hands connected, so their chests almost touch. Bill has to look up at Ted, almost a head taller than him, and sees him looking back.
"If I let go of your hand, that'll just make it seem like I'm the one that broke the dare. So we have to dance like this."
Ted places his free hand on Bill's waist, fingertips ghosting over his spine. Bill tries to hold back a shiver as he reaches up and rests his hand on Ted's shoulder.
"Breaking your dare would be a most heinous crime indeed," Bill says, feeling daring as he glides his fingers closer to the side of Ted's neck. His fingers brush the ends of his hair as it hangs towards his shoulder. "Wait a sec."
He breaks away from Ted and their almost-not-quite-hug-slash-dance to pull Ted towards his record player sitting on the shelf.
"Ted, your music choices are most excellent. What would you suggest for a dance such as this?" He gestures to the collection of records sitting in a box on the shelf next to the player.
He watches Ted rifle through the box for a moment before picking up the album Heartbeat City, an album him and Ted have listened to thoroughly on the rare occasion. Most notably, after prom, when their dates left them. Ted picks up the needle and places it onto the record, presses play, then drags Bill back to their original spot in the middle of the room.
When the song starts, Bill recognizes the tune almost instantly and scrunches his nose.
"Really, dude? I appreciate your most splendid music taste, but Drive?" Bill asks, though he doesn't mind as much with Ted's chest pressed lightly against his own, or the scent of Ted's deodorant irritating his nose, or his soft hair brushing against his fingers.
Ted smiles wide and Bill feels his heart skip a beat, hoping that Ted didn't feel it as well. He gets pulled closer to Ted, the hand on his back pulling him closer.
"Okay, my turn," Ted says after about a minute of the song, pulling Bill out of a Ted-induced trance. "Truth or dare?"
Bill sways with Ted, spinning slowly together in a small circle. "We're really still doing this, dude?"
"Last one. It'll be a most excellent truth or dare."
Ted smiles back when Bill smiles crookedly at him. "Okay, dare."
His friend shifts even closer to him, hand gripping Bill's even tighter, though not uncomfortably. "I dare you to kiss me, dude."
Bill's heart stops beating for way too long that he may have died yet again. When he comes back, he can hear the blood rush in his ears, Ted's warm hand wrapped around his own while the other rests on his back and dragging him closer, feels his own fingers touching the hair on the back of Ted's neck before he's pulling him down that almost-a-full-head height and pressing his lips up against Ted's.
He grips Ted tightly as Bill moves backwards, back of his knees touching the bed and he falls back onto it. They stop kissing when Ted falls on top of him, letting go of Bill's hand to brace himself so he doesn't crush Bill.
"Ted…" Bill says, staring wide-eyed up at his friend's face as he stares back at him, the biggest smile he's seen plastered on Ted's face. "That was…"
"Most triumphant," they say at the same time, followed by a synchronized air guitar.
"But you did break the dare," says Ted, waving his now freed fingers in Bill's face.
Bill shoots him a grin. "I guess you'll just have to give me a punishment dare, dude," he says.
"Bill, my most esteemed friend, you are right as always," Ted says, leaning back down to press another kiss against his friend's lips. "I will provide for you a most non-non-non heinous dare for your transgressions."
With Ted above him, their hands moving back to the other, searching for warmth, Bill definitely wonders how anyone could think of this as anything less than perfect.