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William doesn't really know when his smoking stopped being an every once in a while thing to becoming a dependency, but he was too far in now to quit.
I mean he died, died again harder, came back, but was still somehow rotting, was there really that much more damage he could do to his body?
The symptoms he experienced in the beginning after his first death was almost something he missed. He missed when all he was was cold to the touch, and maybe a little less hungry; now sludgy black rot coursed through the veins all the way up his forearms, extending from his uncomfortably cold and dead black fingers. His hair was brittle and the irises of his eyes had begun to pale. Teeth fell out here and there, y’know, the usual.
What mattered to him though was that when that acrid grey smoke left his mouth and sat in a cloud around his head, it put him in a peaceful haze of almost numbness.
Cold wasn't really a feeling he registered anymore considering how unnaturally cold he ran, but the night air did bring a recognizable chill. He was lying flat on his back on the roof of the previously abandoned Prime Force base they now called home, watching the stars shine and clouds pass through the inky darkness of the sky.
He had a cigarette pinched between his pointer and middle finger that lay on his chest, occasionally coming up to his mouth when he got bored of counting the patterns of stars. Next to him was the half-smoked pack of cigarettes itself, and his phone that was attached to his pair of crappy convenience store headphones.
The music was faint but familiar enough that he didn’t need to turn it up to know the lyrics.
Smokey eyes, are you feeling good? For now, you’re here with me seems like we’ve waited long enough for someone else to make us complete. It’s not a bitter flavour, and it’s not a sweeter drink.
He could almost envision the colours of the music infusing with the smoke lingering and swirling around him, the sounds of muted brown and green being breathed into his lungs.
He snapped back to reality though when he heard a distinct creak and a thump behind him.
He shot up, his headphones disconnecting from his ears and clacking as they fell next to him. He swiped the carton of cigarettes under his leg, extinguishing the one he was smoking and kicking it off the roof.
To his surprise though, instead of Tide or Vyncent, it was Dakota standing there. He was in his pyjamas, pizza-patterned fuzzy red pants and a black crop top.
“Dakota? What are you doing up here?” His voice came out harsh, a raspy croak that sounded somewhat unfamiliar to his own mind.
Dakota kicked concrete rocks around with his bare feet, not waiting for an invitation to walk towards him and sit down. “Dunno. Couldn’t sleep.”
William immediately picked up on his tone, one that Dakota only used when he was feeling particularly rough. “That makes two of us.” He breathed out, watching the tiniest bits of smoke swirl as he spoke and grabbing the headphones that had fallen out and plugged one back in his ear.
He turned away from Dakota to cough, ash creeping up his throat and with nothing to help soothe it, it came out as a rough sound. He tried to hold it back but it creeped out of his throat and left it feeling gross on the inside of his mouth.
“Shit, sorry Dakota, I must have something in my throat-“
“I know you’re up here smoking, don’t lie to me, Will.”
He cringed, coughing the last of the pressure from his lungs. “I-I’m sorry, I—shit, I swear I’m getting better, I’m doing it less, I just need-“
A warm hand was loosely pressed on top of his, sharply cutting off his rambling apologies.
I’m scared to ask you if you’d do the same for me. Smokey eyes, that’s your name isn’t it?
“I’m not mad.”
William’s head turned so fast that it almost hurt his neck. Dakota despied when he smoked, in fact, the first argument they’d ever had not as teammates but as friends had been about how frequently William was sneaking off to go smoke at night. He purposefully kept everything related to the topic as far away from Dakota as possible because it often upset him, what had gotten into him today?
“You’re…not mad?” his tone was laced with confusion, but not in the way you’d think. Dakota was a very difficult person to make truly mad, he was more referring to Dakota when he was upset.
The redhead’s eyes seemed almost a little dull in nothing but the moonlight washing over them. They were still the unnatural maroon colour they always were, just somehow a little darker, a little more haunted then the last time he’d really taken time to look at them.
“No,” He sighed, taking a long pause between his words. “I–I usually hate that stuff and I think it’s killing you and it’s making you sick but-but everyone needs, uhm, something, sometimes, do you get it?”
Those blood-red eyes slowly swiveled up to meet his blue ones, and he could tell that Dakota was emphasizing the statement because he usually disliked any form of prolonged eye contact. William thought for a moment before nodding yes back at him, after all, he knew he smoked in hopes that he’d just die quicker.
At least that's what I call you, When I call you, do you shake the way I shake when I call to say I’m through?
“Yeah, I think I do. But you just like…..hate that stuff, you should be pissed at me right now.”
He felt his scarred fingers tighten over his pale hand and their bout of eye contact was finally broken when he moved them to look back down over the edge of the roof and beyond. “I’m too tired to be pissed.” He said, bluntly.
If anything he could always appreciate Dakota’s straightforwardness.
“Then do you wanna lay up here with me, maybe just for a while?” William cringed at his own awkwardness as he threw the offer out there. Compassion wasn’t always his strong suit but he felt the urge to comfort Dakota, to somehow express to him that whatever was fucking him over emotionally couldn’t get to him from the safety of this decrepit rooftop (which is why he spent so much time up here in the first place.)
William expected to maybe get a small nod or a silent “maybe another night” as Dakota got very quiet when he was sad or tired and he seemed to be a mix of both right now. What he didn’t quite expect though was for the boy to launch himself into William’s arms, wrapping his strong arms around Will’s torso and grabbing fistfuls of the fabric of his hoodie. He buried his face into the taller boy’s chest, saying nothing as he squeezed.
William was objectively very easy to push over, especially when he wasn’t prepared so the motion immediately toppled them both over as well. His back hit the roof with a muffled thump and he froze, adjusting to the pressure of the other boy half-lying on top of him.
”No, I shake the way you do at shows so people know you’re cool, violently but still controlled enough to screw!”
His heartbeat immediately picked up in his chest, thrumming against his ribs at the sudden contact. As much as Will loved to deny it, he was extremely touch-starved. He was almost grateful for the fact that Dakota’s entire face was buried in his chest so that he didn’t see the pink blush that had spread across his face. He awkwardly moved one hand to rest on Dakota’s back, rubbing small circles.
He relaxed his head against the concrete, staring up at the stars above him. His free hand felt around for the pack of cigarettes while music softly drifted through his ears, he located it but didn’t take one, it somehow felt wrong in his friend's presence.
So help me make amends with all my friends, most other people are just dead ends. There’s nothing worse then making friends.
Five or ten minutes must have passed before Dakota moved at all and William honestly wondered if he’d fallen asleep. His grip finally loosened on the bunched up hoodie and he rolled onto his side, his head still leaning into Will’s chest but not buried in it. “Thanks Wiwi, I think I just needed someone to squeeze for a moment.”
When he looked down he saw that Dakota’s eyes were shimmery due to tears, silent drops rolling down his face. He didn’t mention them.
“Of course, like you said, everyone needs something sometimes.” He felt wise and yet so incredibly, astronomically stupid at the same time.
“Can I ask you a question?” The ghostly boy was hyper-aware of where Dakota’s hands were on his body. One was on his chest, absentmindedly rubbing the fabric between his fingers and the other was on his hip. The ache for contact was fulfilled, but it also felt like it was burning him.
“Ask away ‘Kota.”
Sticky thighs, are you wild now or just a memory? Some people want to be your friend, some people just want to be free and the worst thing about me is that I’m somewhere in between.
“Do you ever grieve yourself?”
Not a moment passed before “Yes” involuntarily slipped out of William’s mouth. He didn’t even realize he’d said anything until Dakota’s watery eyes were focusing back on him.
“I guess I don’t have to explain it, huh? I thought you out of all of us would probably know how I feel.” His voice cracked slightly, and he hid it behind a chuckle.
“Every day,” he sighed. “My mom keeps sending me pictures of myself when I was a little kid too, I guess it’s her way of reminding me that she hasn’t forgotten about her fuckup superhero son but it’s downright creepy. I keep looking at her eyes and she has my face, my smile, she grew up in my house, but she’s nothing like me.”
Dakota hummed back at him, processing his words. “Yeah, you definitely get it.”
William shifted a bit awkwardly to look down at his friend, using his elbow as leverage. “Who are you grieving?”
The hero, never sitting still, rolled onto his back with his head still resting on top of William’s arms. He smiled at the sky, his eyes flitting between constellations. “I don’t know, some junkie kid, no superpowers, spent a lot of time on rooftops until he didn’t, I don’t even remember his face that well.”
I might miss you, but I’m still trying to get clean. So help me make amends with all my friends, most other people are just dead ends, there’s nothing worse then making friends.
Something about the stars made William feel particularly brave because he never would’ve been so honest under the scrutinizing light of daytime. “I remember his face, I like it a lot actually. He’s more then just a junkie kid too, he saves a lot of people.”
“Do you think he’d be proud of me?”
“What isn’t there to be proud of? You’re practically Primes shining star.” There was humour behind his words, but they were very genuine. It was Dakota’s turn to blush, Will could very faintly spot the smile he sported and the red tinting his cheeks.
(Unspoken words. You’re my shining star.)
The red-eyed boy nudged him in the arm with his elbow, hard enough for Will to make a sound. “You’re such a sappy prick sometimes! I completely forgot about that side of you since you spend all of it pining after Vyncent and telling people how awesome he is.”
Will feebly kicked him back in the leg, scoffing. “Is that what we’ve resorted to? Punching innocent bisexuals? What would Twitter think of this?”
“Hand me a cigarette?”
“You know that I’m preying on your downfall on Twi—What?”
“Can you hand me a cigarette?” He repeated.
William looked at him in bewilderment and almost a little unnerve. “Are you feeling okay, bud? You like, hate smoking, aggressively. When you found out I was smoking at night you threw every pack in my room into the blender and made me watch you blend them!”
Dakota looked at him with a very specific and recurring ‘Dakota Look’ one that conveyed a ‘this makes clear sense to me but for some reason you’re not getting it’ look.
“Plus I know you’ve been like…clean, for a long time.”
His eyes softened a little bit, and he reached for the pack in Will’s hands which he hesitantly passed over. “I appreciate that you care about my sobriety and you don’t want me to throw that away but I’m not, I promise, I haven’t touched any kind of drugs since the W.A.T.C.H. picked me up and a single cigarette for the first time in 2 years isn’t going to mess me up. I practically had these for breakfast when I was 7.”
Will was still a little uneasy because it was so out of character for his teammate, but he understood what he was getting at.
You’ve had enough to drink you know you’re drowning in the flavour of cough syrup and Vicodin. You’ve got the bitter flavour down so dab the sweeter drink on a napkin then hold it up to your mouth so you can sleep.
As Will took his hand-painted lighter and one for himself the two boys raised them to their mouths. They leaned in close to each other, and the ghost boy felt his heart speed up again. The lighter rolled and flickered a couple of times, bathing them in warm fiery light as it lit the ends of both their cigarettes.
“Just this once, for the sake of familiarity.” He heard Dakota mumble to himself.
They both took long drags, silence settling over them once more. William suddenly felt a very warm and rough hand on his cheek, gently turning him to face Dakota. The surprise contact made his lighter almost slip out of his hand as he jumped, letting the hand guide him to lean in. Dakota pointed at his mouth and nodded his head to signify ‘yes or no?’ and Williams's grip tightened on the small comfort item.
He didn’t have a lot of time to think before both of them would have to release the smoke in their mouths. Fuck it, he said internally and nodded, leaning in close enough that their noses almost touched and their foreheads did.
They both simultaneously blew the smoke out of their mouths in what could be considered a very lazy double shotgun; crowns of smoke wafted around the two, and Will couldn’t help but breathe in the acrid-smelling smoke knowing it was their bond, a representation of the who they were together and the versions of themselves they continued to grieve.
They were left staring into each other’s eyes, the only light being from the ashy ends of the sticks in their hands. The cool, gentle night breeze had begun to blow all the smoke surrounding them away but he couldn’t get any words out, just chilly blue eyes meeting maroon ones.
A creak and a thump in quick succession. “Boys, what are you doing up here so late?”
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Quiet lies that you're telling to
Those black and screaming skies
I hope you're walking around campus
Contemplating your own smallish size
This is not what all my idols told me college would be like
I hope someday you learn to take your own advice.