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There's nowhere that feels more like home to Vyncent than his closest friends in the world.
That being said, a climbing wall is pretty close.
It had been Dakota's idea to go climbing. He'd seen an advert for it somewhere, and had been enamoured by the different coloured rocks and the thought of scurrying up walls with ease. Naturally, this had meant that Vyncent and William would be participating too.
Vyncent had never seen anything like the climbing gym he was in before, but the rock walls did remind him a little of the cliff faces he used to scale, back on Fauna. Different routes were marked with colours, skill levels, and padding along them. The floor was one giant crash mat, that he could tumble onto without fear. The place was an absolute sensory delight.
He waits to make sure neither of the others want to climb.
William doesn't move to climb. Dakota has sprinted the length of the gym and has disappeared.
Oh. Well, okay then.
His left hand reaches for a grip. Then his right hand moves. His leg pushes against a foothold. Then, he's in paradise.
Climbing is like a release of energy that doesn't send Vyncent into fight or flight mode. The wall is about 6 metres high, and flinging himself between the holds of the wall sends serotonin into his body to the point that he wasn't sure why it wasn't there before.
There is wind blowing through his hair. After the fact, William will tell him that he looked like a movie star, posed on the climbing holds.
He is in an enclosed space. He's not quite sure where the wind is coming from. Must've been a paid actor.
Once he has reached the top of a wall, he looks back down.
William looks back up at him with primal fear in his eyes. It occurs to Vyncent, overwhelmingly and at once, that Will might not have the same interest in climbing that he does.
The obvious solution here is to coax him into climbing a wall, like a stray cat. This is a healthy and encouraging thing for him to do.
“Hey, William?”
William looks seasick.
“Do… Do you wanna climb?” Vyncent swings his entire body around so that his back is facing the wall and he is pushing out, like some sort of fucked up spider, to maintain his position.
“Not really!” William calls back. His voice has risen pitch by nearly a whole octave, and he looks more ghostly than he normally does, which is impressive.
Vyncent attempts to reach a hand to a hook above his head. His fingers touch the top, and where he expects there to be a jug hold, his fingers start to slide down a sloping edge instead. He loses his purchase and, just like that, he is crashing into the mat below him. William lets out an unholy squeak.
He lands on his front, like a pancake.
Instantly, adrenaline rushes through him. Before he can process that the wind has been knocked out of his lungs, Vyncent is attempting to climb another wall.
Below him, William looks like he just fell from a ledge of some sort. Which is odd. Maybe William is just an empath today. Lots to think about.
The next wall is marked as easier than the last. Vyncent is able to find holds with ease, and is at the top before he can blink. The rush of joy he gets is incomparable.
He looks, from his perch on the wall, out at the bouldering section of the climbing centre.
The centre seems to stretch on, different colours splattering against walls in the far distance. Vyncent wants to feel the freedom of all of them.
He hops back down, and starts planning how much ground he can cover before he needs to buy more water.
-
William has already decided that he fucking hates it at the climbing centre.
Dakota Cole, his literal heart, is one of his best friends in the world.
Two Dakotas is already a lot to deal with.
A climbing centre full of people just like Dakota? He would rather kill himself again.
The climbing walls themselves are fine. He can’t promise anyone that he won’t slip right through them, but he’s not complaining at the prospect.
But the blinding fluorescent lights? Hellish. He would know, he’d nearly lost his sight staring into the lights of hell for hours at a time.
At least Vyncent seemed to be having a good time. He had been swinging between boulders in a way that William wasn’t sure was allowed for nearly an hour now, attempting to coax William into climbing up the walls after him each time.
Each time, he let whatever excuse came first tumble from his lips.
“Sorry Vynce, I’m not really feeling this one,” or “This one looks a little hard, I don’t know,” or “This looks more like Dakota’s speed, why not let him try it first when he gets back?”
Anything but the truth.
And the truth, well. The truth was that William knew the second he risked falling even slightly, his body would betray him. Powers glitching out, breathing picking up, heart racing inside of his chest, where he wasn’t sure if it was still beating.
He was trying to keep it together. Dakota had been so excited about coming here, and Vyncent was having the time of his life. He just felt like he couldn't breathe in here, that was no big deal, right?
Vyncent gives him a wide grin from the wall that he's currently scaling. William suppresses a nosebleed.
It couldn't hurt to try, right? Even if William fell from two feet high and cracked his head open, it still wouldn't be the dumbest way that he had died.
It might have been the most avoidable way, though.
William decides to think about it a little longer.
Vyncent looks like a movie star, unexplained wind channeling through the strands of his hair in a way that William wishes he could photograph and frame in his mind forever. He is also still desperate for William to join him on the wall, for next to no reason.
There's nobody telling him he has to do this. He could leave it be and be happier because of it.
William cannot leave it be. William refuses to be chill about anything ever. He will climb a V2 at the climbing centre kicking and screaming and whimpering, and he will be proud of himself, or he will be proven right again.
The easiest climbs are marked in yellow. William drags his dying corpse over to the nearest one, a climb that goes straight upwards with no overhangs or turns that he needs to navigate. All he needs to do is navigate himself up the wall. It's like a fucked up ladder. How hard could that be?
He places a foot onto a low foothold and pushes his weight into it, propelling himself into a hand hold above his head.
Holy shit. I'm doing it, William thinks to himself.
Then, he makes the mistake of looking down.
The floor is miles away.
Objectively, William knows that this isn't true. The floor isn't even a metre away, he's one hold off the floor.
However, all his brain can process is This Is Where It Ends.
William isn't… surprised that he's still scared of heights. He can hover, he can survive death, he can go intangible, but all of that means nothing in the face of panic.
Why is he panicking? It’s entirely irrational. He can start heading back down at any moment.
In fact, what's stopping him from moving his foot back to a lower hold in an attempt to-
“Oh, hey! You're actually climbing! Didn't think you would.” Vyncent walks past his wall and heads off into the distance.
Oh. That felt… that felt nice.
Maybe he should keep going.
Steadily, and with firmer holds and fluid movements, William pulls himself up the wall.
He doesn't do it for Vyncent’s validation. Of course he doesn't, that would be silly. He does blush when Vyncent cheers for him but that's… unrelated.
When he reaches the top, he realises that Dakota was right. This is fun! He's… enjoying himself?
He thinks he is.
He turns down to look for Vyncent.
Vyncent is sitting on the floor below him. His headphones are pressed into his ears, the points sticking out behind them. He's stretching his legs, barely aware that William is still climbing.
Which is fine. Except that when William looks back down the wall, the terror that he had faced comes rushing back into his body. All of a sudden, the fear doesn't feel bearable anymore, and he's looking down at his death again.
His grip begins to loosen as he tires. William doesn't think he can safely climb back down and the floor looks… much farther than it should.
William knows that he's being irrational.
William thinks that he's being irrational. It's a little hard to tell, dumber things have stopped his lungs.
If he can just hang on for a little longer, then grab Vyncent's attention, he'll be fine.
His fingers don't hurt.
His fingers might hurt.
-
Dakota can now successfully say that the climbing centre was a good idea.
With William finally having scaled a wall, now hanging off of a ledge with a look of panic that Dakota assumed was probably fine, and Vyncent in an entire world of his own, it occurs to Dakota that he's the only one who hasn't been climbing.
Really, that was never the plan.
Dakota had brought up the suggestion as a way for his friends to be able to release their energy in what was essentially a playpen for adults. He couldn't lie about being a big fan of the colours and shapes, because that just wouldn't be true.
But there wasn't more than a second where he had considered climbing himself. And, on the padded floor of the gym, there wouldn't be.
Every time Vyncent dropped, every time William's eyes darted around, Dakota had to hold himself back from running the length of the gym to catch them. Every time, he had to remind himself that he was safe. They were safe. These were fake rock walls, nobody was going to get hurt or die, even if they fell.
Each reassurance did less than the last to calm his nerves.
Perhaps, perhaps, being on the ground for too long had allowed him to lower his guard. Tide would probably try to tell him that this wasn't a bad thing, and that he should be allowed time to relax, to think about his own needs.
Obviously, Tide was wrong and had never experienced the weight of his entire team before. And even if he had, Dakota had experienced it in different, more interesting ways. So he didn't have to listen to Tide ever.
He could stay on the ground.
That had been his plan, hadn't it?
You have to be the support, Dakota. You have to catch your teammates if they fall, says the voice in Dakota's head that he is relatively confident is his own.
He hadn't once considered this a good idea.
But maybe being a bad idea didn't make it the wrong idea?
The solution to this was obvious. Dakota had to climb the climbing wall right this instant in order to put his guard back up. This would surely have no other repercussions for him.
But William is up there right now. And he doesn't look so good.
Ah well. Nothing lost, really. He'll climb another day, alone, and he'll be fine. No point wasting energy when he could be training or spotting someone.
Speaking of: why is William not coming down?
Odd.
Dakota starts traversing back across the padded floor of the climbing gym, over to Vyncent and William.
Vyncent is on the floor, sweating through his clothes, headphones on as he stretches out the day's climbs.
William is floundering in the sky.
“William?”
“Oh! Hey, Dakota! Don't suppose you can tap Vynce for me?”
“Are you stuck?!”
“No! No, I'm alright, Dakota! Just can you get Vyncent's attention for me?”
“Hold on! I've got you, William!”
“No, that's alright-”
Dakota is halfway up the wall before he can finish the sentence.
It turns out that Dakota does enjoy climbing. Each movement feels like regaining control of his body, working his muscles, completing a puzzle that doesn't make him think about numbers or words. It's satisfying, and it's also an exact level of challenge that suits him.
It is obvious that William does not feel the exact same way, though, and while the climbing wall does feel like home, he would much rather feel at home with his best friends in the world.
There is a secure grip at the top of the wall. With one hand, he transfers his weight into the grip, and with the other, he scoops his arm under William's waist.
Will is shaking. His smile is wavering, and Dakota can feel his pulse through his chest.
“William?”
“Ah! Hi Dakota!” William is practically squeaking.
“I’ve got you, Will. We're going to fall backwards now, and it's going to be scary, but I've got you this time, and you're going to be fine. Okay?”
“Mhm!”
Dakota shifts his weight, again, and puts himself between William and the floor. Then, without giving William a warning, he pulls them both down from the wall.
They are falling for less than a second, but Dakota swears there is nearly a full minute when they are weightless where he can feel his fear beating out of his own heart in Will’s chest.
But this time, they are falling together, and Dakota has promised that they will be fine.
They collide with, not the floor, but Vyncent.
The three of them land in a pile of sweat and fast-paced pulses, on the crash mat.
Dakota lets himself lie there, sandwiched between them.
“Ow.”
“OH SHIT, SORRY VYNCENT-”