Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Your brothers say your grades are slipping." 

Ponyboy tries not flinch hearing the voice. He knew Dally was alive; one of his brothers had told him. Frankly, Ponyboy couldn't remember which one anymore. It came up, quietly, casually, at a dinner where he didn't eat enough and his head was already throbbing. He didn't try to visit Dally, and Dally didn't come to the house, as far as Ponyboy was aware.

Until now.

They hadn't talked since Johnny died and Dally fled the hospital. 

Johnny.

Stay gold, Ponyboy. 

Ponyboy clenches his fist as the words echo in his head for the millionth time since he first encountered them. Johnny had saved his life, ruining his own in the process. If he hadn't killed Bob, Ponyboy would be dead, yes. But Johnny wouldn't have gone on the run, would never get caught in that cursed church fire.

"Johnny would be here, if he let you die." Dallas' crude words echo his own thoughts.

"You think he should've let me die," Ponyboy mutters.

"Sometimes."

That’s not surprising. It still hurts though, although Ponyboy doesn't flinch. He clenches his hands tighter under the safe shadows of his desk. 

Dallas sighs heavily. "Don't take it to heart; I ain't got no measure of morality anyways. You know that."

Ponyboy doesn't tell him that it's too late. He's always been fascinated by Dallas. A lot of people are, he supposes, although the way in which that fascination runs varies widely. Most people are reluctantly impressed by the sheer audacity of him. Ponyboy was always curious about him. He was like a vigilante, handsome and fearless, a bit shadowy. He'd lived on the streets of New York, which to Ponyboy mainly exists as a distant place almost impossible to grasp as real. He thought of New York and he thought of Jay Gatsby and Holden Caufield; of bright lights and danger. There were...mobs and mafia there, in that giant urban labyrinth. Dallas had been there though, and he'd survived. 

Truthfully, he didn't care if Steve Randle resented him as Sodapop's stupid tagalong runt of a baby brother. 

Dallas was different. He was never under the illusion that he was Dallas' favorite or anywhere near that. But everyone respected Dallas, whether they liked him or not. It was impossible to genuinely not to care what Dallas thought of him. 

"Seriously, kid," Dallas continues in that rough voice of his. "Don't go killing yourself over this...I'll fucking bring you back—"

"And kill me again yourself?" Ponyboy cuts him off impulsively.

He hears a few heavy thuds before Dallas wrenches his chair around. He scowls down at Ponyboy with a blazing intensity. His hatred sears Ponyboy's skin, and his heart thumps frantically. "You don't fucking get it, do you? Johnny is dead because he saved your life. He believed in you more than he believed in his own freedom, in his own life."

Dallas steps back from him, and the fury melts from his face a bit. Ponyboy can't even be relieved though, because it gets worse: Dallas just shakes his head. He looks disgusted, more than he ever had over whatever ugly shiners or cuts they'd acquired over the years. 

"You already got it all," he says, and Ponyboy swears he hears a sneer. "You're smart as hell, on the books at least, fast as fuck. You may be poor, but so are the rest of us, and nobody else on this side of town got the prospects you do." 

Dallas paces back and forth. "You could get a scholarship, or somethin', and here you are...wasting everyone's sacrifices!"

The door bangs open, and Sodapop storms in. Ponyboy expects him to beg them not to fight, but Sodapop just looks coldly at Dallas. "Get out." 

Dallas has the grace to look mildly abashed, but he doesn't leave yet. 

"I said," Sodapop seethes. "Get out! Get outta our house, and get the hell away from my brother."

Dallas looks at Ponyboy, and he still looks a bit disgusted. And yet, just maybe...Ponyboy might be hallucinating out of desperation, but he looks a bit pitying. "You could be someone worth something," he says lowly.

Sodapop swings. 

Now, Ponyboy isn't stupid enough to underestimate his brother in a fight. Soda may be the softest of the three of them most of the time, but that's within the family. Soda doesn't like them fighting because he loves them and wants them all to be happy...or as happy as they can all things considered. But his brother can fight. He can more than handle himself in a rumble, and Ponyboy knows he'd kill for him if need be. All that aside, Dallas doesn't even try to defend. He staggers a single step back, and Soda hauls him out of their room. 

He comes back, and much more gently leads Ponyboy to their bed. 

"I'm sorry, honey," he murmurs, brushing his hair aside. "He had no right to say that to you. He had no right to use us against you, or Johnny, because we know Johnny wouldn't want you to feel bad." 

Ponyboy doesn't tell Soda, but that actually makes it a bit worse. Johnny had loved him until the end.

Stay gold, Ponyboy.

"It's true, though," Ponyboy gasped. "I'm failing Johnny, and I'm failing you—"

"No!" Soda cries, before he lowers his voice. "No, no, no. Please don't say that."

He tilts Ponyboy's chin up. "Dally's going through a tough time, but you've been through hell too. We know you're trying your best, and you're working so hard. You're fighting so hard, honey, and he ain’t got a right to say shit like that to you."

"My grades slipped," Ponyboy whispers.

"You've been through hell," Soda repeats. "And golly, if that wasn't bad enough, we had to go through that phony hearing debating if you were responsible for Bob's death when you got drowned in the fountain..."

"SODA!" Ponyboy snaps. "I know, I was there. I remember drowning."

Soda winces, and practically crumples over Ponyboy. "I'm sorry," he whispers brokenly and it hurts so bad. "I...you're right. I just hate it, Pone. You're our baby brother, and it makes me so mad, at how...unfair this has all been for you."

"Please stop talking," Ponyboy croaks.

Soda looks at him, his eyes wide and so, so sad. "Do you want me to leave?"

Ponyboy shakes his head. No, he doesn't. Soda can be a bit overwhelming at times, but he loves Ponyboy more than anyone else in the entire world. Ponyboy knows this. He doesn't have many friends outside of the gang, barely any, actually. Most of the gang treats him like an unasked for tagalong, although some with more grace than others. Johnny is dead. Maybe Darry doesn't hate him as much as he'd believed before, but Ponyboy still hasn't shaken the fact that he's an unwanted burden on their brother. 

Soda loves him, though.

If he knows nothing else, Soda loves him.

"You can stay," he tries to laugh. "It's your room, too."

"I can move back," Soda mumbles. 

He thinks of the nightmares, which only get worse as his life gets worse. He thinks of lying in the dark room, bed too cold, and too empty. 

"No, please don't," Ponyboy practically begs. "I...I love you, I just...it's hard to talk sometimes."

Sometimes, being most of the time these days.

Soda doesn't push it though. He wipes Ponyboy's tears with gentle thumbs. "I know, honey. I'm sorry. I want you to always be able to talk to me, and I want to know what's bothering you because it hurts me to think about you suffering in silence."

He sighs softly. "I also know you deserve to set the terms for your...recovery. I just want to help."

"Can we just lie here?" Ponyboy whispers.

Soda gets under the covers of their bed, and Ponyboy joins him, carefully nesting himself next to his brother. Soda slings an arm around him and kisses his head.

”Pone,” he mumbles against Ponyboy’s hair. “Wanna go to the movies tomorrow?”

”Don’t you have work?”

”Steve’ll cover,” Soda says dismissively.

Steve barely tolerates Ponyboy tagging along with them, so he’s not sure why Steve would be alright with covering so Soda can go out alone with him.

Soda holds him a bit tighter. “Don’t overthink it, honey. He’ll cover, and you won’t hear no nonsense about it either. Let’s go to the movies tomorrow, and then I’ll take you to the library to get new books.”

They do go to the movies the next day; Soda even gets him buttered popcorn and they share a large drink.

They go the library afterward, and his brother engages in some light flirting with a library assistant. Ponyboy doesn’t mind; he wanders through the aisles, and picks some new books. He debates getting mysteries, but it’s a bit too much for now. He decides to get some new romantic fiction. Not his usual, but Ponyboy thinks maybe it’s time to try something new.

He’s perusing the books when he feels a light touch on his shoulder. He knows it’s Soda; nobody else is left who’d treat him so gently. Not his mother, not Johnny. Two-Bit is warm, but not delicate. He can’t remember the last time he’s seriously hugged Darry. Steve, obviously not—same for Dally.

“Thought you were flirting,” he whispers.

”Just a little fun,” Soda says and Ponyboy can practically hear his shrug. “I wanna find a book with you. You can read it aloud to me, how about that?”

“I’m looking for a novel,” Ponyboy tells him.

“Duh,” Soda scoffs. “You only read dusty smart folk books with a million words.”

“Why’d you want me to read to you, then,” Ponyboy sighs.

”You’re a good storyteller, Pone,” Soda says. “You make boring things sound interesting.”

“I gotta catch up on schoolwork,” Ponyboy says dully. “I got lucky that some of my teachers are letting me—“

“You almost died multiple times within a few weeks,” Soda mutters bitterly. “And then you were sick for what seems like forever.”

”That’s what they expect out of the only Greaser in the advanced classes,” Ponyboy tells him in a low voice. “They expect a burn out, crash out, or both.”

He clenches his jaw, and only releases it as his brother touches it gently. They don’t talk for the rest of the library trip, or on the car ride home.

Soda flops on their bed, as Ponyboy puts the library books on their shelf.

”Oh Pony,” he suddenly says in an anguished voice as Ponyboy is still bent over their shelf.

”What?” He whirls around and his heart sinks to see Soda holding his book—the one with Johnny’s note.

”Give that back,” Ponyboy snaps.

He snatches the book himself and shoves it on the shelf. 

Soda watches him pitifully. “You said you were failing Johnny…”

Pony clenches his jaw, and Soda pauses. Clearly he deems his little (hopefully little) intervention necessary, because he soldiers on.

”I ain’t no poet, golly, we all know I’m the family fool,” Soda says with a self-deprecating laugh. “But even I know he didn’t mean this to mean school or even track…”

”I know!” Ponyboy snaps. “I know he didn’t! He was…he was too good for that. I’m still failing him though, like I’m failing—“

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Soda warns him softly.

”Well, I’m failing Darry then,” Ponyboy said with grim smugness.

“He’s…he’s not perfect,” Soda admits. “But he loves you. He just wants better for you. He doesn’t think you’re failing him. Pone, if this is about Dally…don’t take his words to heart, especially not now.

”Why not?!” Ponyboy cries. “He was more involved than the rest of you.”

“You ran away,” Soda says tightly. “I know Darry messed up, Pone, but you ran away. There was only so much I could help you there…and golly, Pone, Dallas gave you two a gun after you were already on the run for murder.”

He’s breathing hard now, and Ponyboy knows he’s dangerously close to hyperventilating. Thankfully, Soda calms down after a moment, at least a bit.

”Don’t listen to Dally,” he whispers. “Just don’t. He hasn’t been thinking straight, and…he needs someone to blame.”

”He’s got the right person,” Ponyboy mutters. 

“No,” Soda argues. “He doesn’t. There’s no one to fight here that hasn’t already been fought. Bob started this, and he got what was comin’ to him. But Dally needs a fight, and he can’t deal with the fact that we’re all in the losers and mourners club together here.”

”You think Dally doesn't think I’m mourning?” Ponyboy breathes with quiet horror.

He knew Dally was mad at him, and that he was an ungrateful little runt. He thought Dally at least knew he was grieving, though. 

“He’s not thinking straight,” Soda echoes.

“Why?” Ponyboy demands. 

Soda looks away.

”Sodapop!”

”I don’t think he thinks you’re not grieving…but he doesn’t…it’s not the same.”

”What?” Ponyboy growls.

Now he’s mad. 

“Oh honey,” Soda cups his cheek and Ponyboy backs away.

Soda’s shoulders slump. “We’re all grieving…but we got each other. We got family, difficult as it is. He ain’t got nobody, not like we do. Our friends, except maybe Two-Bit, ain’t got family, Pony. Not really. And Dally, you know he’s always had it rougher than the rest of us. I mean we ain’t ever heard of his parents or anything. Just the streets of New York and well…”

It was Dallas Winston, and most people left it at that. He seemed to spawn out of shadows and chaos, and Ponyboy admittedly has no idea who any of his family members are, if they’re in his life, how well he knows them…if at all.

With Johnny…it was like he softened part of his heart just for him. Everyone loved Johnny—Ponyboy would say he was the most beloved member of the gang. Nobody feuded with Johnny, ever. Even he couldn’t say the same, because a good portion of the gang found his very existence exhausting. 

So, yes, everyone had a soft spot for Johnny. Dally, though…was shocking due to his extraordinarily jaded…everything. 

Darry calls them down for dinner soon after, ending their conversation. His eldest brother is trying, Ponyboy realizes that much. He still remembers Darry crying by his hospital bed, and his brother had taken time off without complaint (at least not where Ponyboy could hear) when Ponyboy was sick and concussed.

Yet, he catches Darry’s pursed lips and furrowed brow while discussing his progress. Darry was like him, once, crazy as it seems now. He gave up college and football to raise Ponyboy and give him the opportunities he once assumed he would get.

Ponyboy feels like shrinking back into his seat. He’s been slowly climbing back, but his next report will see a notable decline from the last one. 

He wonders if Darry will envision his stolen future when he sees it.

Soda tries to give him an encouraging smile and Ponyboy doesn’t bother returning it. 

Ponyboy huffs as he gets off track. Coach had told him it was his best practice in a while. The track team was a wide mix of people, but mostly Socs and the lower middle class. Ponyboy is likely the poorest person on the team. He’s fast, though. The Socs had openly jeered and cheered his recently slump. Ponyboy doesn’t even come in first at this practice.

He’s second, but it’s bad enough. He hasn’t completely lost it, and they hate it. The relief is visible on Coach’s face, and he pats Ponyboy on the shoulder as they stretch after their last lap. The Socs fume behind him, and his street clothes are mopped through the dirt while he’s in the shower. Ponyboy is forced to put his track uniform back on, and shoves on his shitty, peeling sneakers.

When he leaves practice, he sees a familiar car and he grimaces.

He debates walking past Dally, but knows it’s fruitless. 

”What are you doing here?” he blurts out as he climbs in.

”Steve wasn’t exactly fighting to stay your chauffeur,” Dallas snorts.

So either Soda didn’t tell Steve, or Steve didn’t care. It could honestly be either one, Ponyboy thinks grimly. 

”Sorry,” Ponyboy says dully.

“You had a good practice,” Dallas observes.

”What makes you say that?”

“Your coach gives his grease runner charity pats?”

”No,” he admits sullenly. 

“And your classes?”

”I already got a resentful older brother to interrogate me,” Ponyboy says bitterly. “He’s not above hitting me either, so don't you worry about me gettin’ put in my place.”

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Dallas snarls.

Ponyboy is so, so tired. He doesn’t understand if Dallas hates him or not, if he wants him dead or alive, or what in the world is happening now. 

”I don’t get what you want from me,” he sighs. 

“Johnny loved you more than life,” Dallas tells him once again. “The fire killed him but he considered himself as good as dead as soon as he killed Sheldon. But Sheldon would’ve killed you and he couldn’t live with that.”

He doesn’t sound so scary in that very moment. He sounds as tired as Ponyboy feels.

“Why’d you help us run, then?”

”Was I supposed to let y’all go to the gallows?” Dallas barks. “This is why you get on everyone’s nerves, Ponyboy. Can never decide if you’ve got a good brain or not.”

He glares at Ponyboy through the rear view mirror. “Just ‘cause I wasn’t gonna let you two go down easy doesn’t mean Johnny didn’t make a choice when he knifed Sheldon. He chose you over his life, and you’re gonna learn to deal with that.”

”Why are we here,” Ponyboy whispers. 

“You’re gonna be someone who means something, whether you like it or not,” Dallas snaps.

”And if I’m not?” Ponyboy breathes. “What happens then?”

”That’s not your concern.”

”How is that not my concern?! I’ll have to witness it!”

As Dallas’ car slows near his house, he says quietly: “and what makes you think that?”

“What?”

”Stay gold, Ponyboy,” Dallas says coldly. 

Ponyboy barely gets to close the car door when his car tears down the street. 

Chapter Text

Dally ain’t got his head on straight, Soda said. Well, everyone said that. However, everyone knew he was more off the rails than they’d ever seen before.

Ponyboy isn’t particularly enthused that Dallas seems to have made it his new life’s mission to help Darry kick his ass forward until he gets into college. He feels a bit like an ox tied to a plow, getting whipped into action. It’s irritating, and a bit humiliating—Darry, he knew had given up his own future for Pony. He was also his legal guardian, so yes, Ponyboy's future was his responsibility. But Dallas had never given a shit about his grades, or anyone’s for that matter.

He was here, though.

Dally didn’t love anyone like he loved Johnny. 

It was the plain and simple truth. It was the truth which drove him to goad the fuzz into raising arms. He’d never wanted to make it out of the shootout he orchestrated.

Yet, he had, and that was a problem. It sounded cruel to say, but it was a problem. Dallas treated it like a problem. He was angry, and bitter, inconsolable at being left behind in a world without Johnny.

Johnny had asked him to get Dally to look at a sunset, someday. Ponyboy thought it was a bit unfair.

How, Johnnycake, do you expect him to care about a sunset? You yourself said he’d look at me crazy, and that was when you were still here. Well, now you ain’t, and he’ll throw me into the sun if I suggest something so damn dumb.

It was what Johnny wanted, though, and Johnny was dead for the great crime of being the best friend Ponyboy Curtis ever had.

It was cruel to say about someone who’d helped him in one of the lowest points of his life, but Ponyboy had never liked Dallas Winston much for this exact reason. He liked clouds, books and sunsets—Dally thought stuff like that was stupid, because Dally was real. He was gritty and mean and cold, like Ponyboy assumed the streets of New York were. 

Johnny hero-worshiped Dally. Dally scared Ponyboy, and not in the way he scared most people. Well, a little, but that wasn’t what kept Ponyboy wary. Dally was knowledgeable in the ways of the world, in all his rough and bitter glory, and deep down Ponyboy knew that. What did that say about the world, then?

That was what always scared him the most.

A car honks, shaking him from his thoughts.

He swallows a sigh and climbs in the car.

”Johnny wants you to see a sunset,” Ponyboy blurts out without preamble.

”And I want Johnny alive, but the world ain’t fair,” Dally barks.

”Just saying,” Ponyboy mutters. 

“Where’s your coat?” Dallas grunts then. “I gave you my jacket for nothin’, huh?”

”I can give it back,” Ponyboy mumbles.

”Just wear it,” Dallas huffs. “I got through the winters in New York with it, and those are a helluva lot colder than down here.” 

”Did you live in New York your whole life before coming here?” Ponyboy dares to ask. 

Is it embarrassing how little they actually know about Dallas? He’s always just been…Dally. A real tough hood from New York, kind of scary, but not necessarily a bad person. Yeah, he was always in and out of the cooler but it was mostly minor stuff as far as Ponyboy knew. 

Maybe Johnny knew. Johnny seemed to think he knew a lot more about Dally than the rest of them and he was probably right.

”Yeah,” Dally finally says.

His voice is gruff, and a bit quiet compared to his normal manner of speech.

”What’s it like?”

”You read all those books and you don’t know?” Dally says indignantly. “You ain’t read The Catcher in the Rye, yet? A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?”

The Catcher in the Rye came out around the time he was born, and Ponyboy had read it. He read the Great Gatsby too. He hadn't read a Tree Grows in Brooklyn yet, but Dally doesn't need to know that.

”You ever been to Long Island?”

”I lived on the streets of the city for three years and you think I been to Long Island?” Dally snorts. “Ain’t nobody there wanna deal with us urban hoodlums. S’why they move there.”

”Sorry.”

”Don’t apologize for dumb shit that ain’t your fault. It’s not tough,” Dallas orders.

“I ain’t tough,” Ponyboy mutters.

Dallas slams the horn on the car, and it blares. Other cars start honking back, and he throws his head back.

”Damn it, Pony. I told you, you better wise up! Get tough like me man, and you ain’t gonna get hurt! Coulda died, and my last real words woulda been wasted, huh?”

”They were already wasted.”

Dally is silent for a moment, then he snorts loudly. Ponyboy imagines a bull, puffs of air shooting out of flared nostrils, as it gets ready to charge. “‘Scuse me?”

Ponyboy swallows hard. “I…you’re real tough, Dally, and maybe I should get tougher…but you lied...or maybe not lied. But I think you're wrong. I’m still gonna get hurt.”

”If you followed my advice, you wouldn’t have run into a burning church like an idiot,” Dallas snarls.

"You told me that afterward!"

"You know damn well what I mean!"

”There were kids!” Ponyboy reminds him. 

”You’re a kid!”

”We’re both kids,” Ponyboy says softly. “I’m not tough, and you are. But we both got hurt because people do get hurt in this world…especially Greasers.”

”What do you know about me?” Dally sneers.

”I know that you tried to goad the fuzz into putting a hail of bullets in you. You wanted them to kill you, end your life, 'cause the world hurt you so bad you don’t even want to stay in it. But I’m supposed to believe I ain’t gonna get hurt if I get tough like you.”

Dallas is silent for some time. He keeps driving, and parks in jagged motions outside the Curtis house. 

“You ain’t me, Ponyboy Curtis,” he finally says. “And you don’t know nothing about me.”

”Thanks for the ride,” Ponyboy mutters, slamming the door behind him.

Dallas drives away, and he stands on their front lawn before stomping back to his house. 

Dallas doesn’t appear for some time after that. Ponyboy tries not to think of it. He watches the news carefully with Darry. Every night, he braces himself to hear about some shooting outside some store.

Dallas always got what he wanted in the end, and he’d wanted to get shot up.

One night, they’re doing just that, watching the news. Steve is out with Evie, and Two-Bit has to watch his sister. Soda, having picked up on his anxiety, sits next to him with a plate of cake. Normally, they just eat it for breakfast. His brother cuts it carefully and starts to eat it, before sticking a piece in front of Ponyboy’s mouth.

He eats it in a daze.

The phone rings, and he feels something tighten in within him.

“Hello, Curtis residence. Darrel speaking.”

His brother falls silent behind them, before he sighs heavily. “How bad is it?”

Then, “sorry the kids had to see that.”

”Still.”

Darry sighs again after another long moment. “You can bring him here, yeah.”

He slams the phone back and place and glances at them. “Soda, get the kit. Pony, some water, painkillers. Maybe soup. Probably soup.” 

Ponyboy fills a pitcher of water, gets some glasses and a bowl. After that, he grabs the bottle of painkillers and dumps it next to everything else.

Around ten minutes later, there's a firm knock, and Darry opens the door. 

“Thanks,” Tim Shepard says gruffly.

”Pony!”

He blinks as he hears his name in Curly’s voice.

“Tim didn’t really want me to come, but he had his hands full with Dallas, so when I hopped in the car he didn’t kick my ass,” Curly explains gleefully. “Whatcha making?”

”Soup,” Ponyboy says quietly as he hears the older men talking in low and rough voices out in the living room.

He’s sure Darry had assumed there was canned soup left in the pantry, but there wasn’t. It seems an afterthought anyways, and so he had decided to make some.

A few years back, his mother made some kind of soup, with balled up meat scraps, and veggies. Dallas was very fond of it, but then again, Dallas was fond of his mother overall. She could talk him down like no one else, not even Johnny. See, Johnny could talk him down, but Dally would still be fuming and snorting. He didn’t try that crap with Mom. He looked at her, and his winter blue eyes seemed just a like an early spring sky…for a second.

Maternal love, or even affection, was something he’d never known, outside their Mom. Ponyboy is pretty convinced of that. It’s a powerful thing though, a tender thing that not even the toughest hood can resist. 

He misses his mother. Most of their problems now wouldn't be here if his mother was around. His father loved them too, but Ponyboy swore up and down that their mother could fix anything, heal any hurt. If his mother was here, he'd stay at home, even if someone hit him. She would have made it better, and he would have trusted her to fix it. 

Anyways, Dallas said once it reminded him of matzo ball soup, this Jewish dish. He had it with his St. Christopher’s medallion hanging from his neck. Ponyboy had looked at it for a tad too long, and Dallas told him he wasn’t Jewish, just from Brooklyn.

He didn’t understand, but you didn’t push Dallas Winston for more than he gave you. So Ponyboy just nodded at the time.

Curly’s fingers dart into his view, and Ponyboy whirls around.

”Wash your hands, and I’ll get you a bowl.”

Curly huffs and Ponyboy rolls his eyes. At best, he’d just been smoking some weed. The worst, well, that end of the spectrum was miles off.

He makes Curly a tiny bowl and makes him carry the other bowls. Then, he brings the rest of the soup out. 

“You make him wash his hands?” Tim drawls.

”Yes, Timmy, he did,” Curly sighs.

Ponyboy dares a glance at Dallas in the meantime. His blond hair is streaked with blood. His bare torso had a bunch of scarred over lacerations, but on his abs, there’s a real long, freshly stitched one. There's also some scattered bruises, some looking fresher than others. 

Ponyboy hands out the soup. 

“I ain’t hungry,” Dallas says and Ponyboy notes there’s a cut on the corner of his lips.

”You really should eat,” Darry huffs. “And there’s iron in the meat.”

”I made the one that Mom used to make that you liked,” Ponyboy says at the same time.

Dallas’ hard stare softens a smidge. “Hand it over, then.”

Ponyboy does, and their fingers brush. Dallas’ fingers are rough, grimy, and tense. Ponyboy steps back quickly, feeling wholly inadequate. He feels like a stupid kid, untested, and well, unsavvy. Ponyboy tucks into Soda’s side on the sofa, and his brother slings an arm around him. Ponyboy leans into his touch. If their mother isn't here, he's mighty glad he has Soda. He doesn't know what in the world he'd ever do without Soda. 

”You did good,” Soda murmurs in Ponyboy’s ear. “It tastes like the way she made it.”

His voice is as somber as it is soft, and they sit in quiet grief for a moment. For some time, everyone just drinks the soup in silence. 

The Shepards leave soon; apparently whatever happened, Tim explained the whole thing while he was in the kitchen. Curly throws him a sloppy salute on their way out.

Ponyboy collects the bowls, and retreats to the kitchen.

“So what happened?” Soda asks, in what he thinks is a low voice. Apparently, Soda missed the story as well. Their house is small, though, and everyone’s too tired to moderate themselves too carefully.

There’s a pause, before Darry says, “he got into a fight with one of Tim’s guys. It was supposed to be a…standard…outing.”

Darry pauses, letting the implication of his disapproval fill the air. Then, he continues. “But there was a small miscommunication, nobody got hurt, apparently—“

“It started a month ago," Dally interrupts. "Big ol’ bastard…Tim wanted to test him, so he told me to stay back, watch him. Don’t let him get killed, but don’t do nothing more. We didn’t get into any trouble, nothing Tim’s usuals can’t handle. He was strugglin’ real hard, though. The fuzz showed, and we ran for it. Like I said, ain’t nothing the good ones can’t handle. He got caught up by the fuzz, thrown in the cooler. Anyways, tonight, Tim and I were going to settle another score. Just a lil’ brawl like we always do now and then, you know? I won, knocked him on his ass while the kids were there. Ain’t nothing they’d never seen, though. Then this motherfucker, bursts out of nowhere with his goddamned knife, and I wasn’t expecting that. Everyone knows how it goes: Tim, the kids, his guys. They ain’t happy but they know what’s up. This bastard, though, he comes at me trying to bury that thing in my gut. He scraped me over here, and maybe I shoulda left then. Then, he started running his fat, flabby mouth.”

Dally sighs heavily then.

”What did he say?” Soda asks cautiously.

”I was gonna let Tim handle it. He was already getting fed up with the guy, and they were lookin’ for another big man…around his size but one that could keep up. He needed to get his licks in, too."

Dally barks out a laugh. "Cause I won in his house, yeah?"

He sobers again right after that.  "Then, the goddamn motherfucking shithead…he said I was too slow, like I was too slow to…”

Dallas trails off.

Ponyboy feels a bit faint himself. He realizes he’s still carrying the tray of soup bowls and lands them on the counter a bit more heavily than he should.

He hears running footsteps, then, “Pony?”

Soda’s arms are around him, and he herds Ponyboy to their bedroom.

”It’s alright, honey, the dishes can wait. You worked hard.”

“He wasn’t too late,” Ponyboy says quietly. “I…I was in the way. I was in front of the window, and apparently my back was on fire. I didn’t feel it ‘cause of the jacket Dally gave me. But he had to beat the fire outta my back, and then he went to get Johnny. It was too late then. He ain’t too slow, he was wasting time dealing with me. He coulda...if it weren't for me..."

”Ponyboy Michael Curtis, don’t you ever spew such bullshit again.”

He dares to look up and Soda is glaring at him. He looks furious, in a way Ponyboy can’t remember ever experiencing.

”Don’t you dare call yourself or your life a waste of time,” Soda tells him, his voice trembling.

He hugs Ponyboy tightly and buries his face in Ponyboy’s neck. “You ain’t got no idea,” he whispers hoarsely. “Darry and I woulda killed ourselves if we didn’t get you back, baby. We was a mess, worse than Mom and Dad. We didn’t work, we didn’t sleep, we didn’t eat. Steve made us get it together, because he said we gotta be ready n’ fresh just in case we need to come n’ get you. Baby, he can’t cook for nothing, I tell you. He was takin’ extra shifts at the DX for me, though, and used the money to get food for Two-Bit to drop off.”

Ponyboy mulls over his words. He and Steve never got along, to say the least, but he and Soda were true friends. Ponyboy was grateful for that. 

“You’re the brightest little thing on this side of town, you know?” Soda tells him. “You’re so smart and you’re so kind. Pony, you’re gonna be the first one in a long time to get outta this side of town. You’re gonna be someone who changes the world.”

”Golly, might as well squirt me with Cheez Whiz, Soda,” Ponyboy mumbles, his cheeks hot.

”But most importantly, you’re our baby brother. We love you so much, and we know you deserve the world. You deserve to live, Pony.”

”So did Johnny.”

”I know, honey. Life ain’t fair.”

The words are so simple. Too simple.

Soda sighs against this shoulder. “You know, lots of people say I look like an angel, but I ain’t one.”

”Yes, we know,” Ponyboy says dryly.

”Pony," Soda whispers, and his voice sounds almost afraid. "I’m just a high school dropout who’s gonna work at the gas station ‘til I drop. Darry’s gonna work on those roofs until he falls off one. We ain’t got our parents, just each other. You ain’t gonna like this, and I love the gang, but we’re a family first. I miss Johnny and it hurts so much, but I wouldn’t be here missing you.”

Ponyboy blinks. “What do you mean?” he says slowly.

Soda finally pulls back and smiles sadly at him. “I already told you, me and Darry—we weren’t living when you were missing. We were breathing, but we were fading and shrinking away. If you were gone forever…”

He looks down. “I don’t think me and Darry could wait so long to follow.”

Before Ponyboy can say anything else, Soda drags him to bed. “You got school tomorrow, and I got work. We gotta sleep.”

“Soda—“

“Bed, Ponyboy. Darry’s gonna lock both of us away if you fail that math test ‘cause I kept you up.”

Chapter Text

When Dallas Winston was a homeless bum in New York City at the tender age of thirteen, one of his few solaces was Shakespeare in the Park. He was no remarkable Shakespeare fan, but he was bored as hell and it was free. Also, people didn’t really jump kids at Shakespeare in the Park. They stared at him, though. His hair wasn’t dark enough to look dirty blond, and it just looked plain dirty. They wrinkled their noses at his smell, and gave him a wide berth despite the crowds. Dallas learned to ignore it; homeless kids didn’t get baths, except if they were getting drowned in the sewers or their corpses were dropped in the rivers. 

It was there that he learned about the ‘green eyed monster’ in Othello. He’d never imagine his own green eyed monster to be a green eyed kid with a sharp intellect dulled by dreamy tendencies. 

Ponyboy Curtis was three years younger than him, and remarkably oblivious, all things considered. While Dallas could sympathize with him to an extent—the kid had it rough, there was no doubt about that—all his reading couldn’t help him imagine just how lucky he was.

He was fourteen, and had yet to get a job; poor as the Curtis boys were, Ponyboy’s brothers kept food on the table. He spent most of his afternoons running track and wandering the library, while Soda manned the DX counter and Darry fixed roofs. Well, at least that was where he was supposed to be. 

Ponyboy lived recklessly and seemed unbothered that it that terrified everyone else around him. Many would call Dallas reckless, but he had no choice in that. Homelessness was unsafe everywhere, but especially in New York. The city’s elite and even the middle class pretended this was a choice. An undisciplined lifestyle led by heathens had led them to face the consequences of their own actions.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Survival wasn’t clean. Wealth wasn’t either, but it was prettier and that was what mattered. The first few times he was arrested, it was for desperate stuff. Stealing fruit, picking pockets, the basics.

Jail was cruel. It made him meaner, and he cared a little less about being good. Nobody gave a fuck about him, and he didn’t give a fuck about nobody.

Ponyboy didn’t get that. He had looked at Dallas so damn pitifully when he told him if you look out for yourself, nothing can touch you , man. Well, Dallas almost wishes he was right. He failed at his own advice, because against all odds, he found the gang. He found two kids who scared the hell out of him when they showed up at Buck Merrill’s all out of sorts after killing someone. 

Johnny couldn’t go to jail because jail fucked people up and Johnny didn’t need no more of that…and Pony couldn’t get pneumonia because he would die. A real pair of idiots, the two of them—Ponyboy’s grades be damned. He gave Ponyboy his jacket, Johnny a gun, and both of them some money. He got hauled to the station, then nearly got his ass beat by Darrel 'Superman' Curtis Jr. Sodapop spent a good hour trying to guilt some details out of him, before writing a letter for him to deliver. Dallas had apparently become the goddamn mailman too, because why the hell not? 

He did all that, and what did they do? Run into a burning church, that's what. 

Dallas knew Darry hardly made it easy for Pony, and he was furious when he found out Darry had hit the kid. He couldn't even blame Ponyboy for running away, although the collateral damage was catastrophic. Cruelly, Dallas wants to blame him anyway, just a bit. If he’d just kept his ass home, he wouldn’t have needed saving.

It’s not fair, he knows this. Dallas himself wouldn’t be so far down South if he’d stayed where he’d been battered.

Darry wasn’t his old man, though. Dallas will admit he’s got some perspective Ponyboy didn’t have. Both Soda and Darry were devastated that Ponyboy was missing. He does think it might surprise the youngest Curtis to know Darry really did take it worse than Soda. Darry almost beat his ass when he wouldn’t tell them where their brother was. He looked absolutely haunted, pacing like a madman and muttering under his breath. Soda was worried, but the whole thing was killing Darry. 

Maybe the closest thing he's ever had to a home, and he knows most of the gang would agree, is the Curtis house. It's warm, and filled with food and affection. It's not perfect, but it's home. There's love exuding from every square foot of it, and it's a bit sickening. The brothers have their quarrels, some worse than others, but they love each other dearly. Sometimes, it seems like they love the rest of them as well. 

It's not the same, though. Johnny once told him he thought Ponyboy was jealous of him. 

"He thinks I'm the gang's baby or somethin'," Johnny had murmured. "I told him it ain't the same as being the baby of the family...especially not his family."

It wasn't the same at all, although that's another thing Ponyboy Curtis will never get. Glory, sometimes Dally feels amazed when one of the big brothers brags about the boy's grades. Maybe it's because he's always cared more about being street smart. He feels quite convinced, though, the score the kid got on his English essay really doesn't matter if he's getting shit knocked out of him because he ain't wise.

Uptown, at Columbia and NYU, there are a whole lot of philosophy majors. They stroll around Greenwich Village in their shiny loafers and Mary Janes, blabbering about Kant, Voltaire and whoever else they've been reading that week. He always had to be careful about pickpocketing them, but there was a strange temptation to get caught. All that mushy talk about mercy and liberty or whatever…well he'd always wanted to see what they did to poor boys who lived the injustices they fantasized about. 

Ponyboy reminds him a bit of these kids, sometimes. The thing is, kids like Ponyboy don't get parents to pay for him to sit around and wonder. They don't got the money for him to play philosopher because he doesn't come from a family well supported by crude oil or sweatshops. 

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. He knows damn well after he left Ponyboy's room that day, Sodapop eventually came home, cuddling and coddling the boy until he, at least for the night, forgot Dallas’ mean mug and uglier words. 

Nobody would ever believe him, but Dallas didn't mean to hurt him. Ironically, in Dallas’ honest opinion, he's never been the worst with the kid. Steve and occasionally Two-Bit wrote Ponyboy off as Soda’s kid brother. The tag-along, the wannabe, and whatnot. Dallas actually hung out with the kid, although they usually went with Johnny because they both liked Johnny—who wouldn’t?

Bitterly, Dallas reminds himself that Johnny’s own family, and the Socs didn’t. Even other Greasers saw him as a bit of black sheep. Fuck them all, really.

Johnny cherished Ponyboy’s innocence like his own that he never really had. He didn’t care that the younger boy couldn’t really fight; he didn’t care that they all took turns driving or walking the kid everywhere. He didn’t care that they’d be called up at two in the morning to keep an eye out because Ponyboy ran out with Tim’s reform school regular of a little brother. 

Well, actually Johnny cared a little bit about that.

Despite all the bullshit Johnny lived through in his unforgivably short life, he resented very few people. Curly Shepard was one of those people.

”He’s gonna land Pony in juvie or a boy’s home over stolen vodka,” Johnny had lamented to him one night, in a rare state of intense bitterness.

Ponyboy was like some kind of gold nugget to Johnny. Shiny, and a bit soft; pure. He was something malleable and impressionable, and Johnny never wanted him to become anything else…even if it they knew it would strengthen him. 

Ponyboy was gold of the purest kind and Johnny wanted him to stay that way. 

Not that it mattered, but he was everything Dallas wasn't. If Ponyboy was gold, he was scrap metal, welded together in a junkyard. Durable, rough, dysfunctional. 

Bitterly, Dallas thinks he was everything Johnny feared Ponyboy could become. 

Johnny didn’t wax poetry and write tender letters about scrap metal, because who would? But Dallas was there, and he was tough. He showed up, regardless of the rawest elements, ready to endure any sort of battering. It was all he had ever really known for most of his life, really. He was fairly certain the gang thought he was at least a bit queer for Johnny Cade. Now, Dallas, as a New Yorker, has been around queer people in ways that the gang hasn't. They're alright. He's not one of them, though. They're all...colorful and flamboyant.

When he was a kid, drag queens had already started to pop up in the City. Nobody had ever seen anything like it, and in New York City, there were people from every corner of the world. By the time he was on the streets, there were whole drag communities. There were two kinds: the amateurs that did it as a hobby. Then, there were the male sex workers who dressed up like women. For a very brief time, he lived in a flophouse around the Bowery. There were a lot of homeless men there, including his old man. The old man left him there for days at a time. One of the so-called street queens lived there as well. He was one of the kinder folks in the flophouse, actually. He shared his dinner with Dallas a few times, and Dallas knew that dinner was hard earned. The other men were real bastards overall, but especially to Tommy, the street queen. 

Dallas' own father came 'home' to the flophouse one day, after a few days straight of drinking at the bar. He found Tommy, giving Dallas a biscuit that was only slightly stale. It was even a bit buttery, the best thing he'd had that week. But Dallas' old man beat the shit out of the young man, and then beat Dallas up too, saying he could have 'caught something'. He broke Tommy's nose and jaw. Tommy, who turned out to be the closest thing Dallas had met to an angel, left him some money and his jewelry one day. Apparently, Tommy actually came from a pretty well-to-do family in Queens; he got turned away because they found out he was queer, which led him to their little shithole in the Bowery.  Tommy told Dallas to leave his old man, who didn't give a damn about him. 

Dallas never saw him again, and about a month after he left his old man for good, he passed a Newsie. The boy was yelling about a street queen who they found in the East River. Dallas didn't have money to spare, so he never really learned more. He hoped it wasn't good ol' Tommy, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was. It was morbidly common. Nasty men with fat purses and slim egos, couldn't stand that they got their gratification with other men. However, nice as Tommy was, New York was a steel jungle. To survive in Tommy's situation, one could only do so much charity.

The point was that Dallas knew there were some real nice folks in New York's queer community. He actually missed Tommy, as little as he'd known him. He later sold off Tommy's things to get out of New York, and kept a single necklace. St. Christopher was the protector of travelers, and as unromantic as Dallas is, he's never been able to let go of it since, no matter how tight things got. 

There was nothing wrong with them. He also wasn't one of them.

None of that mattered anymore, though. Johnny was gone. His own deadbeat parents hadn’t even shown up to the little burial they scraped together. 

Ponyboy had clutched a copy of Gone With the Wind to his chest like a lifeline. Nobody, not even Steve, had commented on it.  Dallas hadn’t actually seen exactly what Johnny wrote. Yet at the same time, he knew. Johnny never made a secret of it, Ponyboy was just notoriously oblivious. Dallas wouldn’t be surprised if he was blindsided by Johnny’s last advice to him.

If anything, Johnny was the one who loved Ponyboy as more than a friend. They did disgustingly soft things like read to each other, talking about poetry and sunsets and whatnot. Johnny, shy, timid Johnny, killed a guy because Ponyboy would have been dead if he didn't. They went on the run, and he saved Ponyboy again, shoving him out of that church. His last moments on this Earth were used to make one last gift for Ponyboy. 

Dallas wonders what it would have been like, if Johnny had lived instead of Ponyboy. Pony had asked him about this, and Dallas hadn't bothered lying to him. If he had the audacity to propose the question, Dallas sure as hell could match that. His answer was short and cool. It sounded crueler than he felt it. It wasn't that he wanted Ponyboy dead. Glory, Dallas thinks he actually played a decent sized part in making sure the boy was back home with his brothers in one piece.

Baby Curtis was beyond exhausting to keep alive, and yet Dallas would do it all again. 

It would have been easier, though, if Johnny were here. He may not have been the one Johnny loved the most, but Johnny cared for him more than anyone else did. Dallas dares to think Johnny loved him, at least a tiny bit. He was kind, and attentive. Dallas thinks Johnny might be the only person to ever see him and see something salvageable. He believed there was good in the world, and wanted Dallas to realize that too.

The thing Johnny didn’t realize, was that Dallas did think there was good in the world. Not much, of course. He thought there was good in the world because Johnny was there, and Johnny believed in him despite all the odds. 

Now Johnny is gone, and his world is cold again. The gang cares about him in their own way. It’s not the same though, far from it. Ironically, they all think Dallas is the one that doesn’t care about anything. They think Johnny is the only person he’s ever loved.

They might be right, but it’s because Johnny is the one that taught him he was capable of such a thing. Dallas is a bit disgusted with himself, because these are the types of grossly sappy theories Soda and Pony come up with. He doesn’t know how else to put it, though. 

Dallas does care about the rest of the gang, though. He cares about them like their attack dog, to whom they occasionally gift reluctant affection. It’s not so calculated, but it’s what he’s come to understand it as.

Darry watches him with the wariness of a man that lives in chronic fear of getting his family torn apart. Dallas swears any time he had taken Ponyboy out with him and Johnny, the man looked relieved Dallas actually brought his kid brother home.

Soda is usually fine, but he only loves his brothers unconditionally. A few days after he’d kicked Dallas out of their house, he rung him up at Buck’s while his brothers were away. Darry was working, and he was picking Ponyboy up from track practice afterward.

He invited Dallas back over, and they talked. Well, Soda talked. He talked for a bit about how he knew Dallas was grieving Johnny. Out his brothers, Soda is likely the best at communicating his feeling, although the bar is frankly quite low. He tip toed that day, watching Dallas like he was waiting for him to snap.

The whole talk inevitably came around to the fact that as sympathetic as Soda was to him, that was no excuse to treat Ponyboy in the manner that he did. He didn’t want to exclude Dallas from the gang. Especially not at a time like this went unsaid. However, he couldn’t allow Ponyboy to feel unsafe in their house, which the gang’s main meeting place. 

At this, Dallas is fairly proud to recall that he’d bit back a retort on how Soda’s own best friend made Ponyboy feel more unwanted than the rest of them combined. Steve tends to let Dallas himself be. He's a practical guy, and they've never had any issues. 

Johnny, as far as the gang was concerned, was his benevolent owner. Now, Dallas was apparently feral with grief and Soda had taken it upon himself to ‘house train’ him again.

Anyways, Two-Bit looks at him with a bit of excitement, living vicariously through his fiendish, devilish escapades. 

And Ponyboy…if the rest of the gang sees him as an attack dog, Ponyboy sees him as a wild wolf. Well acclimated to the coldness of the world, a carnal and cutthroat hunter of sorts. Sometimes he catches the kid and he actually looks scared.

Although, two to three near death experiences in a few weeks’ time seems to have impacted Ponyboy. According to Soda, he’s apparently been writing his theme, whatever the hell that means. Soda isn’t sure what it’s about, but it seems to be an intense project for Ponyboy. Dallas almost laughed aloud when Darry added it was for his English grade. Leave it to Ponyboy Curtis to make an experience of epic proportions out of an English assignment.

He’s also been giving Dallas a lot of backtalk. He’s a bit proud of the boy for growing a spine. Only a bit though, because man, the kid really leveled up in getting on Dallas’ Winston’s nerves.

Sitting in the backseat of his car, analyzing why he ‘let’ the fuzz shoot him like a damn detective. A bad detective, really, and it’s a bit embarrassing. Dallas should make him check out some real mysteries next time he goes the library. 

Or not, he muses. Ponyboy had enough problems staying out of trouble. The last thing they needed was him getting all inspired by goddamn Sherlock Holmes. Johnny would never forgive him if he sent Ponyboy down that path. 

Ponyboy was gold; he was soft, sensitive, bright, and artistic. He wasn’t meant to live life scrapping by, living on the edge.

This is what Johnny believed in, and Johnny was dead. 

Dallas knows it’s not Ponyboy’s responsibility to live his life to fulfill the hopes of the people around him. The thing was, all Johnny and his brothers had ever wanted was for  Ponyboy to follow his own dreams, anyway. He had clear interests, and the talent to pursue them. 

It made Dallas grind his teeth a bit to find out the kid was slacking off. All the dreams forfeited to make his own come true, all the futures sacrificed, his own potential sitting idle, and the kid wanted to play street rat. 

Dallas has been a street rat before. If he's learned anything, it's that no kid who wants to play street rat is meant for the streets.

The kid might resent him more than he use to resent ol’Darrel, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t warned.