A/N: This is my first attempt at an Outsiders fic, hopefully I succeeded. This isn't a songfic, but it was inspired by My Chemical Romance's "Bulletproof heart", and also because of the line "Johnny won't you come back home?" – thus we have this. I don't know if it's sad, really, but it's basically the death of Dallas Winston from his own point of view. I don't own the song or the Outsiders.
Away from here.
Dally looked on as the pillow underneath Johnny became heavier. He couldn't be dead... He just couldn't!
Dally turned around, his anger causing him to see white. He slammed his fists into the wall blindly, tears streaking down his cheeks. He'd so hoped that Ponyboy could make Johnny come back to them, to him... But he couldn't.
He remembered where he was, and that a kid was behind him. He turned around, seeing Ponyboy's spooked face, and turned heel. What good would it do scaring the kid?
He liked Ponyboy, but he couldn't bring himself to care for another, like he did for Johnny. Johnny's life had just been so unfair, but that's the way it was, life was unfair. The innocent and good die young, evil sometimes wins; the heroes don't get what they deserve.
Cold hard facts. Otherwise Johnny would've been awarded the gift of life.
He jumped into the car and listened as the tires screeched. A crooked grin slid onto his mouth as the plan took form.
Gravity, he laughed cynically, what a waste. Gravity being a metaphor for love, it dared you to care for others, it made you soft. It drew you to a center of happenings, making everything seem like they make sense.
The only reason Dally survived in the city was because he didn't give a damn about what others said or thought. Then he got here, and he met Johnny.
Johnny: sweet, quiet and caring. Vulnerable and, before Dally knew it, permanently wedged into his heart.
His heart, a stone, but as soft as a sponge when it came to the kid. He preferred to have his heart two sizes too small.
The car screeched to a halt. He left the keys in the ignition; it wasn't as if he was going to need the car again. He made sure he had the empty gun. It was an essential part in the tragedy.
He had a bulletproof heart. Sure, it could pierce his heart, but it couldn't kill him. He'd die when he wanted to. He was used to getting what he wanted. Why wouldn't he get what he wanted now?
He recalled the headlines in the papers the days following the soc's death.
''Johnny, won't you come back home?''
No! Johnny wouldn't come back! Nearly everyone knew that, yet they still begged. ''Give yourself up.'' Johnny had wanted to do that, to save Ponyboy, but things happened to prevent that.
Gravity, the blasted metaphor, didn't mean a damn thing anymore, not to him. He was who he had to be in the city: hard and uncaring. There nothing mattered, and death was near every waking second.
He sauntered into the store, nearly colliding with the door.
''Give me the money!'' He yelled, not noticing the tears streaking down his face, he'd truly gun this place down, giving the bullets a chance to embrace their victims. He wanted them to feel the way he did, to feel the pain, to feel what it felt like to have your heart torn in two, a heart he didn't even know he had. ''Give me the money, or I'll shoot!'' He pulled the empty gun from his belt. The cashier opened the till and started taking out all of the money. He didn't lower the weapon until he steadied himself.
He walked away, grabbing random items he didn't need nor wanted, but it would give the cashier time to call the fuzz, the pigs, the cops...
Sure enough he heard sirens. He quickly called Darry, saying he needed a place to hide, the fuzz was after him. They had to see this.
He ran. He ran away from them... He'd considered running away, but it wouldn't make the pain subside. He'd still miss Johnny, the little kid. He chose the coward's way out, he knew. Blow a hole in the town, he thought, why wouldn't you let me save you, Johnny? I would've taken care of you, of both of you and Pony, why'd you have to be a hero?
At least pony still had Darry and Soda, and Two-bit and Steve. Steve's own heart had softened, Dally knew, but that was it. He couldn't let anyone else in, and he wouldn't be able to after the night ended.
Dallas Winston had never experienced pain. Sure, physical pain, but all bruises heal and scars just show that you've been through a lot, but you came out on top.
Emotional pain was something he'd never experienced until now, and he hated it. He didn't want to feel, he didn't want to think, or breathe, or laugh, or anything. His heart needed to stop; it needed to be cut out and... He just had to stop feeling.
He saw them all running towards him. They cared for him, he realized, they might not like him, but they all cared for him.
Get out of my head! He yelled at himself. Stop your damn caring, all right? I don't want to care, don't you understand?
The fourteen year old brought up the rear, sweating, blood leaking from his head from where he'd been kicked repeatedly in the rumble. Ponyboy had teamed up with him to help him, because he was at a disadvantage. That one gesture softened Dally's heart even more, and he wondered who he'd been fooling? He was not a rock, far from it.
Johnny could've saved him. Johnny could've saved them all. He could've lifted the dark, empty and utterly hopeless feeling Dally had with a simple smile. But it was over; Johnny couldn't do any of those things.
He didn't want to feel. It hurt too much to feel. He need for it to end. He wanted to tear out his heart and hold it out into the darkness, letting the fuzz shoot it. Johnny couldn't light his path now, his kid brother couldn't do it, and that was what Johnny really was to him.
I am not going to be left alone, be left the only one standing from this. He struggled with himself a second longer, before he raised the gun into the air. This is my destiny.
His eyes met Ponyboy's eyes for the last time as bullets ripped through his body. He always got what he wanted, and this was what he wanted.
He smiled triumphantly as he died. Now he could truly run away from here.
. . .
A/N: Please review and tell me how I've done?
