Dallas propped up his muddy shoes on the coffee table, lighting up a cigarette and stretching his arms out as far as they could go. "You know, I think I'm sort of like a rebel without a cause," he announced to the gang grandly. Johnny and Ponyboy exchanged amused glances, and Steve and Sodapop went so far as to actually laugh at him.
"Like James Dean?" Pony asked, laughter hovering nervously around the edges of his voice. "What made you come to that conclusion?"
"I dunno, I've just been thinkin', I guess," Dallas admitted, and would've continued until Two-Bit cut him off.
"A thinking Dallas Winston? Better register that thing as a lethal weapon," he joked, letting his tongue slide out of his mouth as he giggled like a school girl at his own funny. Dally glared at him silently until he quieted down.
"Shut up, greaser. Anyways, like I was sayin', I'm like a rebel without a cause. The whole thing with the socs is kind of dead beat now. I'm not really fightin' for anyone against anything, so I'm just rebelling against myself," Dally observed of himself in a rare moment of wisdom. The group of greasers stationed around the Curtis's living room stared at him like he had grown two heads.
"Is this because of that soc girl that we met at the drive-in? Cherry Valance? I saw you an' her talkin' the other day outside the lot," Johnny sniffed, looking worriedly at his idol. Pony nodded in agreement.
"No, Johnnycake, this is something different to do with than that crazy broad. I'm talkin' more general here. What are we even fighting against nowadays? I mean, I'm always up for a good rumble to pound someone's face in an' all that, but if it's for no reason except someone told me I had to do it, I don't wanna do it." Dallas shrugged his shoulders casually, like the stuff that was coming out of his mouth was a normal occurrence for him.
"We do it because we hate the socs, num-nuts," Steve answered him immediately. Dallas kicked an empty Pepsi can that was rolling around on the carpet under the coffee table and looked furiously up at Steve from under his translucent eyelashes. Steve avoided eye contact with his angry glare, knowing he probably took it a step too far. Dally hated it when people humiliated him.
"No, I think I get what he's saying," Sodapop sort of mumbled, and when everyone turned their attention to him, he looked up from where he was fiddling with his hands in his lap and said, "Like that movie with James Dean, and we're all just sitting around and takin' what everyone hands to us instead of getting out of here. That's all we really got to do, if you think about it. We gotta fight back and get out. That's what Dally's saying', right, Dal?"
"Getting out of this town takes money you don't got, Dally," Johnny said with a sad smile. "It takes money that none of us got."
Two-Bit snorted and took a swig of his soda. "Maybe you're not really a rebel without a cause, Dal, you're just a rebel without money."
"Who's without money?" Darry asked, slamming the screen door shut with his foot, and carrying about five bags of groceries in each hand. "Pony, Soda, can you help me carry in the groceries from the car?"
The two younger Curtis brothers leapt off the couch and playfully pushed each other out the door. Dallas watched them go impassively before he answered Darry. "I'm not without money," Dally corrected, "I'm a rebel without a cause."
"But you're without money, too," Darry teased, sticking his head out of the kitchen.
"Shut up, Darrel," Dally sneered, jumping up from his perch and slamming his foot down childishly. "I'm like fuckin' James Dean, ya dig?"
Ponyboy padded back into the house with less groceries than Darry had, and Sodapop with less groceries than him. "What I still don't understand," Pony began, walking into the kitchen and coming back out to continue their conversation, "is the context to which you are a rebel without a cause."
"Christ, Pony," Steve sighed. "Speak like a human."
"What made you know you were a rebel without a cause?" Pony intoned blandly, annoyance written all over his face.
"You already asked me, Pony, and I said I didn't know, so drop it," Dally snapped, giving him one last contemptuous look before storming out the front door. Everyone winced with every loud stomp he made on the fragile porch as he ran away.
"I'd say that went well, but I'd be lyin'," Soda said forlornly, scuffing his sneakers on the floor as he shouted to Darry. "What's for dinner?"
"Hamburgers. I also bought ingredients to make a chocolate cake, but someone else is going to have to do it," Darry called back, but Soda was already in the kitchen, cracking some eggs into a bowl for the batter as the rest of the gang laughed at his eagerness.
Meanwhile, Dally was still steaming with frustration, smoking a cigarette as he kicked around some glass on the sidewalk on the way to the lot. When he heard the car pull up next to him and match his pace, he didn't even have to look over his shoulder to see who it was. Most socs didn't come near the lot anymore looking for trouble after Johnny stabbed that one guy, and greaser's cars didn't sound that smooth. Dally kept his head down and blew out some smoke, waiting for her to make the first move.
"Dallas Winston, it is far too late to be wandering around like you're doing now," Sherri Valance, known to the world as Cherry, reproached him as she attempted to get him into her car so she could take him home, wherever that was for the night. Maybe he'd go to Buck's, maybe the Shepard's, maybe the Curtis's. Maybe he just wanted to go play house like James Dean did with Natalie Wood, because she was a fine piece of ass, and maybe some part of him still thought James Dean was a stupid little fuck for in that movie for taking his parents for granted, because at least they had wanted him in the end.
"You're precious, sweetheart," Dallas laughed, but it sounded more like a grunt because nothing really seemed funny. "You think I ain't ever been out later than this?"
"Come on, Dallas, get in the car. It's dangerous," she pleaded. Dallas finally glanced up at her, his silver eyes glinting otherworldly in the artificial light of the streetlamp.
"Fuck off, soc," he growled, dropping his cig on the ground and taking off at a run across the lot. Cherry sat in stunned silence for a moment before having the good sense to turn off her car and run after him, because the Good Lord knew she didn't need another dead boy that she loved on her hands.
That was the sad truth, though. She did love Dallas Winston. Cherry hadn't told him yet, but she did love him. She loved how his hair was far too blonde and how blunt and honest he was, even with her. He never told her she was pretty when she cried or when she got angry, like Bob did. Bob was a liar. When she told her mother how she felt about Dallas a few weeks after the trial that she witnessed against Bob at, after Dallas had kissed her right on the mouth the next time he saw her, and had bought her a coke at the drive-in and she actually drank it, her mother was surprising okay with it. She had said, 'It's just as easy to fall in love with someone rich as it is to fall in love with someone poor'. On the other hand, Cherry hated Dallas, too. She hated the way he was unnecessarily cruel to her sometimes and how he didn't really seem to give a shit if their relationship worked or not. She was trying to make it work, because just like she had predicted to Ponyboy all those months ago when Bob was still alive, she'd fallen in love with thick-skinned, dangerous, greaser, Dallas Winston, who was currently in one of his moods. She might have had something to do with it, though. He hated it when she belittled him.
"Dallas," Cherry called out his name, not enjoying the sound of her voice being the only one in the still night. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees, and she was painfully aware of how stupid she was for leaving her jacket in the car. She cursed that this side of town was so spread out, without a whole lot of lighting to go with it. "Dallas, please. Where are you?"
"Jesus, Cherry, shut the fuck up. You are so loud," Dallas said from behind her, and she whirled around to slap him in the dace. He held his cheek momentarily, but she knew she hadn't hit him hard enough for it to hurt, but it was enough to piss him off. "What the hell was that for?"
"For calling me a soc and then running off into the boonies. For all I know now, my car has probably been stolen," Cherry added on as an afterthought, so she wasn't too concerned. Dally glared at her for a moment before his temper cooled down, knowing that she had a valid point. He should've known she would be an idiot and run after him. That pretty red convertible Mustang was probably going to be gone by the time they got back, and it would end up being his responsibility to return it to her. "What's your problem, anyways?"
"You always top the list," Dally scowled moodily, turning around and marching off again, but this time, he kept his pace slow enough for Cherry to keep up.
She snorted in amusement and nudged him in the arm with her elbow playfully. "Dallas, come on. What's wrong?"
"Do you think I'm like James Dean?" Dallas asked, sounding like he was rushing to get all of his words out before he chickened out. Cherry looked at him oddly, the same way the rest of the gang had looked at him, before shrugging her shoulders in that 'Why not?' way that Cherry had. She was sometimes pretty uptight, and then she would just totally be tuff and act like a greaser girl. He liked that.
"You look a little like him, I guess. You're a pretty good actor like him, too," Cherry mused carefully, allowing Dallas to stop in his tracks suddenly and grab onto her wrist tightly.
"No, I mean do you think I'm like a rebel without a cause?" he asked, inches away from her face. His eyes looked anxious, and she felt them roam her face in search of the answer he wanted her to give him. She had to think about it a moment, pulling her hand out of his grasp and propping it up onto her hip.
"Probably," she said. "You have that whole, 'I don't really care' attitude, but that's not really what you mean, is it? You're asking me if I think you're tuff, right?"
Dallas shook his head, still oddly patient with her. "Do you think I'm just fighting for something that can't be real, Cherry? Do you think I'll ever be able to change the world without something I'm fighting for? It all seems like a bunch of bullshit to me. Do you really think I'll be able to get out of here, maybe take Johnny with me? I'm askin' you if you think I can make something of myself while still bein' me," Dally clarified, running his hand through his hair and watching the sky. Cherry tracked his movements as he unconsciously swallowed, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.
"You want me to tell you the honest to God truth, Dallas Winston?" Cherry asked him quietly, and the sudden change in her voice was entrancing to Dally. He looked down from the sky at her hungrily, nodding his head as he stepped a bit closer. With his go ahead, she continued in that same voice that he really, really liked. "I don't think you're a rebel without a cause, because you have so many things to fight for. Two-Bit, the Curtis brothers, Johnny, maybe even me, someday. All I'm saying is that you've already changed my world, and I know a lot of others, too, and all you had to do was offer me a coke that I'm pretty sure you had stolen. I also think you've gone a bit crazy, but I don't mind."
Dallas reached up to push a piece of flaming orange hair away from Cherry's eyes as it blew into her face. "You mean it? 'Cause I'll kill you if you're lyin'," Dally threatened, but it was sort of hollow. His voice was husky with- and if you asked him about it late he would deny it- emotion.
Cherry sighed and leaned forward until her forehead rested comfortably on his collar bone. "Why do you always think I'm lying to you, Dally?" she mumbled into his neck.
Dally shivered at the chills that raced up his spine when her lips moved against his skin. "There's no way you can still like me after all the things I said to you," Dallas confided, and Cherry looked up at him in surprise. This, coming from Dallas, was about as close to an apology as you could get.
Cherry stood up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek before throwing her arms around him to give him a short hug, until he pushed her away grimly. "My, my, my, Miss Valance, don't get your pure lips all dirty on my greasy cheek! You don't know where this thing has been," Dallas teased, imitating what he believed all middle-aged, soc women sounded like. Cherry rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her hair.
She leaned up and whispered sensually in his ear, "I could do so much worse to get my lips really dirty." Dallas's eyes widened in shock and his mouth parted slightly as his air passage suddenly felt restricted. Cherry laughed victoriously at his expression and threaded her fingers easily through his.
"Come on, James Dean; let me buy you some dinner first." Cherry winked back at him as she dragged him along back to where she hoped her car still waited for them.
Poor Dallas was still speechless as she dragged him along, stumbling over his own feet in the haze. Out of it all, the only thing that he could make a coherent thought out of was that while Natalie Wood had a real dollish figure, it was Cherry Valance who had reduced him to a one broad guy, and who was the only one who could say things like that to him and make him react the way he did. It was safe to say that this soc girl beat out all the other tuff girls, especially since she was his. Plus, she recognized his James Dean qualities, so there.
A/N: Obviously AU, because it's after the book is over and Johnny and Dallas are alive.
Disclaimer: I don't own Outsiders, because I wouldn't have let Dallas die. Just saying.