The Weaver Atropos

January 20, 2004

Comments:  It's a splurge of sorts.  My friend absolutely *refused* to let my just not write.  I just finished midterm week, so I guess it was a nice way to let all the stress out.  I'm not expecting much reviews for this one—though I am planning for it to be more than a one-shot (as it stands it's the first chappie of a new ficcie).  I even included a synopsis.  This one goes out to Jenn…or Keelyn!  Oh yea, it might end up being shounen aish (erm..slashy) at some point.  Not sure yet, though.

Synopsis:  Dally Winston gets hauled in to the station as a kid and begins his life as the reckless, renowned hood, Dallas.

Punished.

He was alone.  Again.  Dally cast the four walls of his new cell a withering glare.  He was all alone this time.  No older kid to watch his back, no leader…no Tom.  Dally growled low in his throat.  It was his damn fault he was in there.  Tom had bailed out on them all when their plan had gone awry.  He was their damned leader for God's sakes!

The scruffled youth pushed wheat-blond bangs hastily out of his face.  He didn't have time to wonder about that lout.  They'd be coming to interrogate him soon.  Hadn't he been used to being taken in by the fuzz so often, he might've been in tears.  But it wasn't the first time Dally had been taken in.  He wasn't worried.  Anxious, maybe…but worried?  No, certainly not.

"Hey!  You there."

Dally raised careless eyes at the cop that had stepped in front of his holding cell.  Biting his lip at the instinct to bark out a sarcastic remark, Dally managed a jerky nod.  It seemed all the notice the man needed. 

"How old ar' ya?"

Dally furrowed golden eyebrows.  His age?  Well what did that matter?  He vaguely remembered, though, being told by Tom himself, to always lower his age by a few years to avoid being given problems by the fuzz.  Almost automically and before he could stop himself, Dally answered, "Seb'n."

The cop raised an eyebrow.  "Phone-number?"

Dally shrugged absently, loose oversized white Tee hanging almost ominously on his scrawny shoulders.  He hadn't eaten in a while either.  "Ain't got one."

"Address?"

Another shrug.  "Nowhere."

The cop bared yellowed teeth in a sarcastic leer. "Ya live out on the street, then?"

Dally managed yet another insolent shrug.  "I ain't need to say nothin' to you.  I got a 'right to 'main silent."

"Right to remain silent?  How many times have ya been in 'ere, kid?"

At the inquiry, Dally proudly puffed out his chest, seldom smile decorating his bruised lips.  "Five times."

The cop, whose name bore the tag of Emile, shot Dally a suspicious look.  "So how old are you really?"

"Seb'n."

"Kid—look, I ain't kiddin' here."

"Are you forcin' me into makin' a false confession?"

Emile ran a frustrated hand through thick black curls.  That kid was just too infuriating.  Too…too experienced in a sense.  "No.  I'm just tryin' to explain to you th—"

Dally raised an interrupting hand.  "When're ya lettin' me go?"

Emile cast a quick look behind his back before replying.  "Not anytime soon, kid.  That was heroin we found in ya're pockets."

"But it wasn't mine," Dally argued in typical childhood logic.  "Ya can't take me in for it if it wasn't mine!"

Emile shook his head.  "That's the evidence we found, kid."  He shot Dally a sympathizing look.  "Anyway, we need to contact your parents about it.  Get them to get you out.  I'll take you along to find them if ya don't have an address.  

Emile watched as the young boy's shoulders sagged momentarily, then stiffened as a hardened scowl fell over his sharp features.  "I ain't got no parents."

"Then who do ya live with?"

"I have the right to 'main silent."

"But kid…"

Dally glared, and hard, so that all twenty pounds of his gaunt frame were facing off with the officer that had been assigned his case.  "I ain't got no one I wanna call.  An' I most certainly ain't got no one with enough money to bail me out."

"We'll send you off to juvie if we can't find any parent—to a foster home if ya're lucky."

Dally scoffed.  Big news there.  He'd known what was coming and he'd known it well.  But he wouldn't talk.  That had been one of the rules of the gang.  All for one, one for all—you talk, and you're alone.  Granted, Dally was wise enough to know that saying did him no good where he was, even at the age of ten, but it had profited him well enough out on the street.  "Juvie it is, then, Emile."

Emile glanced up and offered Dally a tight-lipped smile.  "Sure looks that way."

( * * *)

After nearly an hour of answering useless questions for Officer Emile, mostly so that the case portfolio could be distinctly transferred to the New York Institute for the Reformation of Youths, Dally mentioned the fact that he already had a police record elsewhere.  Dally had figured Emile would've needed the information earlier on, but had neglected being cooperative with the young man.

"Winston," he repeated dryly.  "Dallas Winston."

"And you say you already have a record?"

"I said that this was the fifth time I'd been taken in, ain't I?  It was your own mistake."

"Well it was your mistake that got you in here.  Only you can get yourself out."

Dally grinned despite himself, baring a gap in his front teeth as he did so.  "I been lookin' forward to juvie.  'pposed to make you tuffer."

Tougher?  Emile shook his head.  The only things that ended up tougher after Juvenile Detention was your guard.  The rest of you died, and you began to live in a shell.  A cold, lifeless shell that lived only to survive the monotony of each day.  It didn't serve to reform the 'troublesome youth of this day and age.'  It was problematic.  It resulted in infinitely many more delinquents.  More than half of the people who survived juvie—the other half either dead at their own hands or as a result of an unintentional scuffle—lived only to avenge themselves of the sufferings they endured through their stay. 

"You got somethin' you need to pick up?  Some personal belongings?  I'll swing by there on my way to the night shift tomorrow morning."

"There really ain't no—"

"This is just between you and me now.  I'll go get anything.  Take you with me before we I deliver you this weekend."

Dally paused in mid decline, biting his lip in thought.  What could he rescue?  There really weren't any possessions of his worthy of salvaging, and if there had been, they certainly wouldn't' be around for him to reclaim after he'd been absent for nearly three days.  A new boy had probably claimed it as his, or—in Tom's special case—been given away to show the dangers of not listening to their leader.  Tom would use anything to his advantage.  "Do you have a smoke?"

Emile was taken aback for a few seconds.  A smoke?  He was familiar with the slangs of the time and knew well enough what that meant.  But according to the boy himself, he was only seven.   Granted Emile guessed the boy was older—to be smoking and such—but he would have believed the act otherwise.  After all, Dally was of slight frame and short disposition.  He was too young, of course, for his future appearance to be determined, but if things kept going the way they were, then  he had a pretty good chance of being quite the ladies man.  Emile frowned.  That would earn him his share of problems in juvie.  The fact was, Dally was—at ten—more of a pretty boy than anything else.   Those were the ones that had the most problems.  They had to be more careful of their general persona.  They were the ones that were usually bullied.  But there was something different about Dally.  Something dangerous lay in those pale blue depths.  He was…tough, jaded.  Emile never thought he'd be using the word to describe a boy who scarcely looked ten, but it was strangely appropriate.

"A pack of smokes, then?  Nothin' else?"

"I dunno…I'd have to see."

Emile shrugged and grinned.  Truth was, Dally reminded him an awful lot of his little brother back home.  Of course, his little brother had never asked him for a pack of smokes or been hauled in for heroin possession, but he couldn't help the feeling much.  "Be ready tomorrow then.  I'll tell the Commissioner that we're going to collect your clothes.  See you tomorrow, kid."

( * * * )

Dally had spent the better part of two hours trying to get to sleep.   Ever since that damned Emile guy had suggested they go off and gather up his stuff before they headed over to the detention hall—where he'd be held until his punishment would be determined, and probably serve that there as well—Dally'd been anxious.  That wasn't really what was bothering him, though.

He was wondering what it was his friends would say once they saw him, hand in hand with a police officer, leading him to their secret operation quarters.  They'd call him a traitor, no doubt—a squealer.  Even if he had said nothing, it would all be in vain.  They'd be expecting it, though.  Dally shifted on his side, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard, matted slab of Styrofoam that was to serve as his bed for the night. 

Yeah.  They'd be expecting it.  Dally was a loner.  A loner with a weird name and a morose temperament.  But he'd always been that way, and he never caused any problems, so he was left alone.  He raked in his fair share of money, too.  That's the way things were with Tom's gang.  They did things because it was profitable.  Because it would just do.  It'd be the best thing for them all.  Were any of them to be backstabbed, however…the fate was much different.  Dally himself had taken part in the gang's 'punishments' for certain un-abiding members. 

He wondered how they'd react when they saw him tomorrow with officer Emile.

( * * * )

"Ready, kid?"

A slight grunt was all the answer the officer's inquiry received.  "Oh and, Dallas?"

Having been the first time Dally'd been referred to by name by the officer, he spared the older man a glance.  "Yeah?"

"I was readin' in to your file.  Funny thing.  Says there you're not seven."

Dally bared white teeth in a mocking grin.  "Always told me never to give my real age."

"Yeah, well, you gave it the first time they hauled you in."

"I ain't know 'bout my right to 'main silent, then."

Officer Emile nodded and held his hand out, waiting for Dally to take it.  That'd been part of the deal after all.  Because of Dally's age, Emile would be allowed to take the boy out.  However, the young man was reluctant on parading himself about with a ten-year old in handcuffs, and had agreed with Dally that the only other option would be holding hands.  It was one or the other.  Emile remembered Dally's horrorstruck face.  He had definitely seemed more inclined to baring handcuffs than holding onto Emile's hand. 

"I ain't no fag."

And Emile had cocked his head to the side and smiled despite himself.  Yes, sir, he knew he'd hear from Dallas Winston again someday. That kid was born to be something.  It would be a waste otherwise.

(* * *)

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