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“Hey, Dakota?” William asked from his spot on the floor. It was the middle of the night, and the pair decided to have a sleepover in the boy’s room, because Will was feeling a bit nostalgic and Dakota could tell. Sleepovers, though, tended to come with late night, existential conversations, when the rest of the world was asleep and it was only you left with no inhibitions.
“What’s up, Will?” he replied groggily. William felt a bit guilty, since he sounded like he was on the cusp of sleep, but this question simply could not wait until morning.
“How’d you end up so… good?”
“What’d’ya mean?” he slurred out.
“Like,” William huffed, gesturing with his hands as he spoke, even though he couldn’t tell if Dakota was watching, “you don’t do any drugs, you don’t drink, you don’t steal shit, you— you don’t date people for the hell of it. You’re just… you’re so good. I don’t know how you do it. Do you not get bored or something?”
Little did William know, he had struck a long buried nerve with his friend. Even so, Dakota’s expression softened. William didn’t know anything about his growing up, so he wouldn’t blame him for not understanding his distaste for any kind of substances.
Instead of explaining all this, he cracked a light-hearted joke. “Well, you did all of that shit growing up and still got straight A’s. I should be asking you how you got so good.”
William chuckled. “You know that the grading system in public schools is bullshit. I’ve just always been a good test taker. I can never retain anything, though. That’s more like being lucky than good.”
The room fell into comfortable silence again, and William rolled over to find his eyes meeting with Dakota’s in the bed above him. William didn’t know this, but his eyes glowed a faint blue, lighting the room just enough to show Dakota’s relaxed features when he smiled.
“Seriously, though,” Will continued, “have you ever even, like, had your first kiss?”
Dakota put one finger to his mouth in deep thought. After a moment, he hummed. “No. I mean, in second grade my ‘girlfriend—’” he said with air quotes— “kissed me on the cheek, but I’m guessing that that doesn’t count.”
William exhaled through his nose in an airy, non-judgmental laugh. “No,” he affirmed, “I don’t think so, either.”
He turned to lay on his back again and stared at the ceiling. He just couldn’t understand how Dakota did it. Maybe it was their difference in location; New Haven’s school system had nearly 3,000 people in each grade alone, making it very likely that you wouldn’t end up in the same class twice with any one person. In Deadwood, everyone had known everyone since kindergarten, and maybe that was why he bounced from girlfriend to girlfriend once he got into high school. Granted, they usually didn’t last past two months. After number five in one year, he started assuming it was him, but it didn’t make the short lived relationships any less fun.
“Come up here a second, Will,” Dakota offered.
Surprised, William rolled over to his side again. “Why?”
With a lighthearted roll of his eyes, he insisted, “Just c’mere.”
The dead boy complied, shaking himself out of his fluffy sleeping bag with minimal effort. His eyes were still a bit unfocused from exhaustion, but he sat down onto the bed, lanky legs hanging off of the side enough to touch the ground. He turned back to the redhead, who was situating himself out of his blanket to meet William at the edge.
What William didn’t know was the mild insecurities running through Dakota’s head, worried that Will thought he was lame for being too much of a good kid. Yes, he had wanted to do all those things before— smoke, party, date, kiss— but he had always been too nervous to do so. Will grew up in a religious town with strict parents and still had more fun than him, so he definitely was just being a coward.
William didn’t think anything ill of Dakota, though. No, Will admired his commitment to a good life. He enjoyed drinking with his old friends and sneaking out in the dead of night to do things he shouldn’t have, but he lived with the constant guilt of those actions, as well as the repercussions. He was, thankfully, down to only a cigarette a day, but that urge was constantly clawing at his throat, promising him he’d be more relaxed afterwards.
Neither of the boys voiced these opinions and concerns, though, so William watched in silence as Dakota finally sat up. He chose to sit on his heels, knees brushing lightly into William’s thigh in a way that the boy with raven hair didn’t notice at first.
“Come closer,” Dakota directed lazily, but William didn’t know just how fast his heart was beating.
William did as he was told, scooting himself enough that Dakota could, rather abruptly, grab his legs and swing them onto the bed. He situated himself between them and then pulled at the lower hem of Will’s hoodie. Being guided forward, it all happened too quickly for Will to process until he was on top of Dakota’s knees, legs hooked in a criss-cross around the shorter’s abdomen.
He tried to get a question out, but Dakota grabbed a side of his face in either hand and effectively shut him up with his lips.
The kiss was brief, minuscule, even. He pulled away just as fast as he pulled in, like how you would expect a second grade girl to kiss her elementary school boyfriend on the cheek. Still, William short circuited, frozen like all of the wind had been knocked out of him. He knew himself to be easy to fluster, but even that small action made the blush bloomed deeply across his face, burning its path until the tips of his ears were not even safe; this was on an entirely different level.
“What…?”
He wanted to ask what the hell just happened, but the words all died on his lips. Forming sentences was now the most impossible feat known to man, because Dakota Fucking Cole was holding him in his lap, having just kissed him.
Dakota only smirked, a lone finger twirling his black hair absently. “So, do you still think I’m too good?”
“What?”
“Well, I just invited a cute boy to make out with me, on my bed, in the middle of the night.” He grinned wide. “Seems like a pretty bad thing for a teenager to do.”
Blushing further, William snorted, attempting to diffuse the tension in the air and the pounding of his heart with humor. “That was not making out, alright? That was the quickest peck I’ve ever— mmph!”
Dakota surged forward, stealing the words directly from Will’s tongue. The dead teen had no way of knowing this would happen, so he fell backwards. The weight of the two bodies caused his head to slam into the pillows; they fluffed up to frame his face while Dakota continued to press him down into them.
His arms found themselves wandering Dakota’s back, holding tighter just so he could be pinned further against the mattress. The way their lips brushed together was maddening; Dakota was fervent, with a squished nose and a little bit of teeth pulling at William’s lower lip. It made him yelp for a second, but then he gave back as much as he could. Even pressed down into the bed, he strained his neck upwards as far as it could reach to meet Dakota’s passion.
He let his tongue in briefly, causing a startled noise from his friend. Even though he was just as excited, William was trying to hold back a bit for the other’s sake. He remembered how scary his first kiss felt and didn’t want to overwhelm Dakota, but, then again, William and Dakota were very different people. William never would have had the gall to invite someone to his room, then his bed, and then start kissing them, especially after knowing them just a few short months.
With great effort, Dakota broke the seam of their lips. William thought it was an absolute crime that they both needed to breathe.
“That good enough for you?” Dakota said smugly, face cherry red as he continued to pant from above him.
His lips still stung, and he could only assume that they were as brightly flush as the rest of him. Dumbly, William nodded. “Mm-hmm. Yep. That was definitely making out. You sure you’ve never done this before?”
“I’m sure.”
“Oh, well. You must just be a natural, then.”
Dakota laughed again, rolling over to be on William’s side. Then, he wrapped an arm around the taller’s torso, burying his head into his chest. “Goodnight, Will.”
The flustered boy’s face became impossibly redder. “Am I staying up here tonight?”
Dakota nodded, his cheek brushing softly against the fabric of Will’s hoodie. “Yeah. I feel like being bad. If you’re fine with that, of course.”
“Yeah, I am,” he answered much too quickly. “Night, Kota.”
William couldn’t stop his cheesy smile as he wrapped his arms around Dakota, already asleep as soon as he finished talking. All in all, Will would call this a successful sleepover.