Work Text:
Dakota Cole was many things. Hyperactive, easily distracted, a superhero, occasionally feral (though he preferred not to think about that one too often). One thing Dakota was not, was weak. So when the thermometer came back at over 100 degrees and he was sweating buckets with the fan on, he panicked a little. The Dakota Cole could not just sit around and rest! Evil did not take sick days, so neither could he!
William and Vyncent seemed to be in a very different mindset about that one, however. Dakota found this out while he was perched up on the roof of the Winnebago, glaring down at his friends trying to coax him down with pizza. It was tempting, but Dakota was not so weak willed.
“Dude, c’mon,” Will complained half-heartedly, having floated up to Dakota a few minutes ago and trying fruitlessly to force him down. Naturally, that didn’t work very well, so Will resigned himself to just sitting up there. Dakota batted his hand away, letting out a quiet growl.
“I can’t go to bed! I need to-” There was a bird. Or maybe two birds? It was hard to tell. It was a very pretty bird either way and Dakota got distracted by it. William probably knew what kind of bird that was. William liked birds. William. Right, the roof. Dakota shook himself out of his distracting thoughts and turned his attention back to his friends. “I need to fight crime!”
“Why?” Vyncent asked, exasperated. The elven boy was clearly having none of Dakota’s bullshit today. Dakota did not appreciate that one bit. He did not like it when people didn’t put up with his bullshit. He thought his bullshit was very funny.
“Because evil doesn’t rest or get sick!” He cried out. The bird squawked and flew off. Dakota watched it go a little sadly.
Will, being the sneaky bastard he was, used Dakota’s momentary distraction to shove him off the roof into Vyncent’s waiting arms.
“Finally! Geez,” Vyncent muttered and started carrying Dakota inside as William slowly lowered back down to the ground.
Whoa. Dakota was not expecting them to have such a solid plan.
By the time he finished processing everything that had just happened, Vyncent was dumping him on his bed.
“Hey!” Dakota shouted as William covered him with a blanket. He thrashed around, throwing the blanket off and sitting up. He glared daggers at his teammates, both of whom looked very unimpressed and unafraid. Vyncent pushed him back down onto the mattress.
“Dakota, you can’t fight crime if you can barely stand,” Will explained patiently. He waited a moment for it to sink in but was met with a blank look on Dakota’s face. “Please, stay here. For us?”
He and Vyncent were giving him puppy dog eyes. That was usually Dakota’s move. It was very effective either way.
Dakota sighed and pulled the blanket up to his shoulder.
“Fine. But only because you guys asked me to.” William and Vyncent both smiled in relief at that.
“Is there anything we can get you?” William asked. Dakota thought for a moment. He was fairly comfortable despite the fever he was running (having a superserum-heightened immune system did wonders against the common cold). He shook his head no and lied down.
“I’m good,” Dakota said. He snuggled into the covers deeper and fell asleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
William was not happy. Don’t get him wrong, he was all for cuddling with his boyfriends. But when a very sick Dakota grabbed him and yanked him into the bed while Vyncent stood by laughing, he figured anybody would be a little upset.
“Vyncent,” He stage-whispered, struggling against the arms caging him in. “Vyncent help me out of here!”
Vyncent clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the volume of his laughter down, doubling over. Will glared. Vyncent would pay for this later.
After a moment of unbearable glaring and laughter, Vyncent straightened up and left the room. William stared, horrified at the empty doorway for a minute before thrashing around in Dakota’s vice like grip.
William struggled for several more moments before eventually giving up, sagging against Dakota’s chest. At least he got cuddles.
Vyncent came running back in with blankets and a pillow and set them down on the ground. He situated himself in a nest of pillows and blankets next to the bed and sat down. William let out a sigh of relief. So Vyncent didn't abandon him to the mercy of a sleeping Dakota after all.
Vyncent raised an eyebrow at William’s thankful face.
“Did you think I’d just leave you here?” The elven boy asked, poking William on the arm. William huffed and closed his eyes, unable to turn away in the death grip Dakota had him in. Vyncent laughed softly and got under the covers, twisting around to turn off the light.
Dakota huffed in his sleep and mumbled something, ruffling William’s hair. William smiled contentedly and reached a hand down to Vyncent. The elven boy took the hand and planted a kiss on William’s cheek before lying down. William closed his eyes and let his mind go fuzzy as he fell asleep, surrounded by his boys.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Vyncent woke up, Dakota was gone. He groaned. Of course. He sat up and began the lengthy process of shaking William awake. It was always a struggle to wake Will up. He slept like, well, the dead.
William always insisted that his habit of sleeping through everything short of an air horn or bucket of ice water had to do with “the whole being dead thing.” Vyncent knew better. Will was Just Kinda Like That.
While Will was groggily rubbing his eyes, Vyncent turned to the clock and saw that it was only an hour later. He let out a breath. How much trouble could Dakota have possibly caused in only an hour?
Vyncent was shaken out of his thoughts by Will falling out of bed and onto the floor with a loud thud. Vyncent wordlessly helped him up and went out of the room to make a quick meal and give William time to change back into his binder. Vyncent popped some toast in the toaster and turned on the radio to listen for any mentions of a red-haired force of chaos in the city.
There was nothing yet, but Vyncent figured it would only be a matter of time. He got to work getting a quick breakfast prepared and tuned the radio out in the process. William walked in, fully dressed and still clearly very tired.
“Made you some toast,” Vyncent said, gesturing to the table. Will ignored the words and collapsed into Vyncent’s arms. Vyncent huffed affectionately and ran a hand through William’s hair, letting them both stand there for a peaceful moment before going out to find their third.
They were snapped out of their thoughts by a very distressing story on the radio.
“It seems like a young red-haired boy was seen earlier today letting dangerous animals out of the zoo,” The little man in the radio said. Vyncent sometimes wondered how the man knew all of these things, but now wasn’t the best time to think about that. Right now, they had a Dakota to catch.
William and Vyncent exchanged a quick look before rushing out of the building to find Dakota, toast in hand.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dakota was having a blast. First, he helped that man not have to do taxes by burning all of his tax papers, then he freed all of the animals at the zoo! He truly was the best superhero in the world! Besides Ms. G. She was definitely the best. But Dakota was second!
He ran down the street, a troop of baboons behind him. He grinned. These monkeys were free like Bobo now! He was going to name all of them, and take them home, and then he would have an army of monkeys!
Turning into an ally, Dakota breathed heavily as sirens rapidly approached.He He couldn’t let the cops take his monkeys away, they were his friends!
He wasn’t as fast or strong as he was used to, but he chalked that one up to the sickness and kept going. He had to get the monkeys out of there.
One of the monkeys screeched at him.
“Atomic, I’m trying to rescue you!” Dakota tried to reassure them. Atomic screamed. He rolled his eyes. Typical Atomic.
Dakota heard two sets of footsteps coming from the back of the ally. He whirled around to face the people. No one was going to take his monkeys away, he was Dakota Cole, Free-er of Monkeys and Archenemy of The Internal Revenue Service!
“Stay away!” He shouted in a warning. “You aren’t taking my monkeys from me!”
Atomic screamed from the back. Dakota was getting really tired of xerattitude.
William and Vyncent stepped out of the shadows and Dakota relaxed. They’d let him keep his monkeys if he gave them puppy dog eyes for long enough. The cops wouldn’t.
“Dakota, why are there so many monkeys behind you?” Will asked. Dakota handed Will a monkey.
“This is Ren, they’re my monkey friend!” He said, ignoring the question. William stared at Ren for a second in pure disbelief.
“Dakota, this is a lizard.” William said. Dakota looked at Ren more closely.
“Huh, she is! Isn’t that fun!”
William looked very tired.
Vyncent screamed from behind William. Dakota looked and saw Lane climbing on him and knocking him off balance.
“Lane!” He yelled. “Stop that!”
Lane looked at him for a second and then went right back to her mission of knocking Vyncent over. Dakota sighed.
Atomic screamed again. Dakota glared at xem. Duck gave him a look that said “why are you still putting up with this?” Dakota glared at ex too.
“Dakota, we should get you back to bed,” William said, ignoring Vyncent’s distress calls in the background.
“WAIT!” Dakota yelled. William froze. Vyncent tried to freeze, but it was pretty difficult considering the monkey that was still using him as a jungle gym.
“Are we keeping the monkeys?” He asked, lathering the puppy dog eyes on as thick as he could.
William sighed the sigh of a man who knew he was going to lose an argument with his boyfriend about keeping a large troop of monkeys recently liberated from the local zoo.
Vyncent screamed, as there was still a monkey on him. The police sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer.
Atomic screamed.
“Sure, Dakota.” William said finally. “We can keep the monkeys.”
Dakota cheered and grabbed Lane off of Vyncent. He started stumbling back towards the base, monkey troop in tow.
Will and Vyncent followed, guiding Dakota so he wouldn’t fall in his weakened state.
As the three made their way back toward the base with their newly adopted monkeys and lizard, Dakota fell asleep against Vyncent.