Work Text:
William stood at the small countertop of the Winnebago. A small pile of old dishes was gathered inside the sink. William grabbed a clean cup—one of his favorites, made of green plastic—from the cabinet above and filled it with water. When he attempted to turn the sink off, his hand phased through the knob.
William focused, frowning, and forced his hand back into tangibility. He shut off the water.
But, as he lifted it to his mouth to drink, the cup fell through his hand, the loud clatter on the floor making his whole body tense. William expected to feel the spilled water soaking through his socks, but he felt nothing. Entirely nothing.
Not only did he not feel water on his clothes, he couldn't feel the fabric itself, nor the ground beneath his feet. He felt his stomach tilt as it always did when he stopped being able to feel air touching his skin. The world began gaining a fuzzy, distant quality, like watercolor beginning to bleed together.
William could feel absolutely nothing.
He paused. Had he been tangible, he may have sat on the floor and curled up, pressing his knees up to his chest. It would’ve created at least a vague sense of pressure. But he could feel nothing from a body that wasn’t there; utterly unfeeling, unable to affect himself or anything around him, William simply wasn’t.
Still, it was far from his first time in this state. He focused, furrowing his brow. For a few overwhelming seconds, he regained feeling in his body all at once, grimacing at the water soaking into his socks. It only lasted for a moment; once again he became intangible.
“Why’d you go all… ghosty?”
William spun around. Dakota was sitting on the edge of his bunk, swinging his legs. He was holding a comic book. One of Dakota’s blankets, a worn thing decorated with the cartoon faces of the Prime Force, was dangerously close to slipping off the side of his bed.
“Didn’t want my socks to get wet,” William said, stammering slightly. He inwardly cursed the lack of privacy in the Winnebago.
William could feel Dakota staring at him as he tried, to no avail, to become tangible again. He was starting to panic—which always made it worse—but knowing that he was starting to panic was making him panic more. To block out the blurriness crowding his vision, he squeezed his eyes closed.
“William? Where’d you go?”
Dakota hopped down from his bunk with a thud. William opened his eyes and, looking down at his hands, realized he had become invisible. He felt like a ghost, unfeeling, unseen—floating vaguely in a sea of undefined shapes. He didn’t respond as Dakota walked forward. Dakota grabbed a towel and threw it over the puddle on the floor, picking up the green plastic cup and setting it back on the counter.
“You still there? William? Y’know, out of your pranks, this isn’t the best one. It doesn’t work that well if you don’t try harder to scare me!”
William didn’t know whether or not he appreciated Dakota’s cluelessness. He felt an unbearable embarrassment flood through him at the thought of admitting what was really going on. He was weak enough already, and the thought of Dakota discovering this shame made William want to stay invisible forever. Dakota Cole—stronger, faster, and more confident than William could ever dream to be. And William, a boy who was quite skeptical that anything was real at the moment.
“You can come out now, clearly your prank didn’t work.”
William stayed silent.
“Whatever, man, go ahead and try to scare me. But I’m expecting it now.”
Dakota returned to his bed and laid down, feet still kicking off the side, flipping through a comic book. William sat on the floor. Focusing on returning his body to a visible and tangible state only increased his anxiety, but he had nothing to distract himself with. He couldn’t pick up his books, nor play music in his headphones.
It occurred to him that nothing had gone wrong earlier in the day. Often, he could attribute episodes such as these to a moment—or, at least, a collection of moments—that left him in an upset and dysregulated state. It would build in him throughout the day until the culmination brought him caving in on himself, unable to keep himself attached to the physical world.
This time was different. William could link no moments of emotional instability to this. He simply wasn’t, and couldn’t find a reason why. That scared him more than anything.
As these thoughts made their way through his brain, he barely registered the fear; William felt utterly detached from the world. He felt blank, empty; all that existed was dull shapes and silence. The only thing convincing him of his sanity was the sound of Dakota flipping the pages of his comic and whispering to himself.
William slowly got up and padded to the bunks. He climbed up and, hesitantly, crawled onto the bunk to lay next to Dakota, still invisible. His body made no impact on the blankets.
Dakota had no idea that there were two sets of eyes on his book.
While reading, Dakota muttered dialogue and occasionally made small sound effects of explosions or bangs. It was a quirk that, in the past, had often greatly annoyed William when he’d been trying to focus. Now, however, he begrudgingly found it rather immersive.
Reading alongside Dakota began to be an effective way for William to distract himself. He found himself enjoying the comic quite a lot, despite it being composed mostly of the sort of flashy superhero fights William usually had less interest in. The pages came into focus, blurriness subsiding, like Dakota was speaking them into reality.
Dakota turned a page, and several things happened at once. Without warning, Dakota shouted and swung his arm hard at William, who, with a yelp, promptly fell through the bed onto the lower bunk.
It appeared, William realized, shaking with shock, that William had accidentally become visible again. It scared Dakota, who lashed out on reflex.
“Dude, fuck! You actually fucking got me!” Dakota started to laugh. “Right after I swore you wouldn’t.”
Will pushed himself against the wall on one side of the bunk, shaking. The scare had sent all of his panic back to the front of his mind. He was still intangible, now flickering in and out of visibility.
“You okay? Sorry, don’t know if I hit you.” Dakota popped his head over his bunk, peering down at William.
William didn’t look up. He pulled his knees to his chest, trying and failing miserably to ground himself. The fuzziness in his vision and the detached feeling of his mind were back. He needed to feel something physically, and he couldn’t; he squeezed his legs to his body as hard as he could and felt nothing.
“Oh, shit… what’s wrong? Did I actually hit you?”
William shook his head. Dakota hopped down from his bunk. The loud thump startled William again. Dakota sat next to William on the bed. He tried to reach a hand out to touch William’s arm, flickering in and out of invisibility, but the hand passed through.
“What’s wrong?” Dakota asked again, as softly as he was capable. He shifted awkwardly, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
William stayed silent. He didn’t have the words to explain, and, even moreso, was terrified that Dakota wouldn’t even be able to hear him. William knew that was rather silly; he was always audible when he spoke, regardless of his tangibility. Nonetheless, irrational as it was, the thought frightened him to his core. Inaudibility would be one step closer to not existing at all.
“Are you okay, dude? What should I do?”
Dakota tried and failed again to touch William’s arm. William flinched at the sight, pulling away.
“Sorry,” Dakota said. He looked somewhat hurt. “I thought touch might help you. It helps me when… y’know.”
William knew this well. When Dakota became overwhelmed to any degree, even a slight touch from William helped ground him. If he became panicked—and, occasionally, aggressive—he would cling to William to calm down. When he felt safe after the fact, he often fell asleep from exhaustion while still pressed to William’s side.
In reality, William wished for nothing more than to feel Dakota’s hand on his arm, but seeing how Dakota could make no contact with him sent his anxiety spiralling even more.
“Er… I guess… Do you want to read that comic? Y-you were reading it, too, right?”
William nodded quickly.
“Okay, yeah. Good.”
Dakota got up and jumped to grab his comic book from the upper bunk. He sat next to Wiliam, flipping through it to find where he had left off. He began to read it aloud, holding the book so William could see it easily.
He read for several long minutes. William felt once again calmed by the distraction. He even found himself smiling as Dakota gestured dramatically along to the story.
Dakota reached the end of an issue. William reached out a hand to keep him from turning the page, but he stopped before he reached Dakota’s hand, realizing he would simply pass right through. Dakota paused, lowering the book.
William didn’t know what he wanted to say. He chewed on the inside of his cheek.
“Uh, so…” Dakota ran a hand through his hair. “Do you mean to be all ghosty? Or is it that you’re kinda stuck like that right now?”
William looked away. He forced himself to speak.
“It’s hard to come back sometimes,” he said. The words were clumsy in his mouth. “I feel so fuzzy and away from everything. Kinda makes me wonder… I don’t know.”
“You can say whatever,” Dakota said. “You’ve seen me at my worst a billion times now.”
It was true; William was the one Dakota needed to calm him after panicked and aggressive episodes; he was the one who always had headphones at the ready. He provided the physical contact Dakota needed to ground himself.
“I—I wonder sometimes if I’m actually real,” William muttered. He continued, quickly, “it’s crazy and stupid, I know.”
“Not stupid,” Dakota replied. He seemed thoughtful. “Maybe a little crazy, though. Of course you’re real; you’re right in front of me right now.”
Hearing it said in Dakota’s matter-of-fact, blatant way made William feel a little reassured, despite the doubtful voice in the back of his head insisting that his lack of tangibility meant Dakota proved nothing. Still, being here with Dakota made that voice easier to ignore.
“Yeah,” William said. “I guess you’re right.”
“Wanna keep reading?”
“Sure.”
Dakota picked the comic back up and resumed where they left off.
As Dakota read, William found his mind wandering. A part of him had hoped that admitting his fear would resolve it, but the doubt remained present. He supposed it was rather naive to hope that a single, short conversation would lead to a true feeling of closure. But, he still found himself wanting more.
He was pulled from his thoughts as he realized his hands were slowly becoming more tangible. The feeling spread through his body until he once again entered the physical world. His body sunk down onto the bed. The air on his skin and gravity pulling him down once again was somewhat overwhelming, but he was thrilled regardless. Dakota grinned at him.
“You’re back,” Dakota said. He wrapped an arm around William’s shoulders and squeezed—perhaps a little too hard—before his face melted into concern. “Wait, is this okay? Do you wanna be hugged?”
“Yes,” William said, embarrassed at how eager he sounded. “Yes, please.”
He was afraid he might slip back into intangibility. It seemed that William was always afraid. But the fear did relax as Dakota wrapped him in a tight embrace, and William smiled as the slightest hint of warmth began soaking into his skin.