A Game of You
The church was desolate; they'd quickly explored each room of the abandoned building, their footprints etched on the dusty ground, their echoing footfalls scaring off the skittish rabbits from their hiding places. After the novelty of a new place had worn off, they had to find new ways to occupy themselves after having taken the steps of cutting their one pride and joy that defined them as greasers; their hair.
Lips pursed around a cigarette, Johnny took a deep drag as he surveyed his cards in his dirt streaked hand, nails bitten down.
He exhaled, smoke curling around his head as he shifted uncomfortably under Ponyboy's intense gaze. "Stop staring at me, will you? You're giving me the creeps".
A grin spread across Ponyboy's face, breaking his thoughtful look, "you're bluffing Johnnycake, there's no way you'd risk losing three more smokes to me."
Johnny almost pouted; his newly shorn clean and ungreased hair sticking up at all angles.
"I'm not bluffing."
Ponyboy put his cards down on the dirt floor, next to a pile of cigarettes between their feet. The king of hearts, with a crumpled corner, lay amidst the jack and queen of hearts, completing an unlikely royal lineage.
Johnny held his cards closer to his chest, as he stared down at Ponyboy's cards nestled by his feet. Ponyboy reached over and shoved him in the shoulder gently, "show me your cards!"
Johnny leapt up to his feet, still holding his cards in one hand and ran out to the back of the room, calling over his shoulder, "you'd have to catch me first, Blondie!"
With an enraged yell, Ponyboy jumped up from the church floor as Johnny took off, disappearing through the back door of the church to the fields outside. Ponyboy grinned at the thrill of the chase and ran, easily catching up with him thanks to his long loping gait that Coach Adams had admired at track try outs.
He tackled Johnny from the back to the ground, cards flying out of the older boy's hand as he fell to the grassy field. Johnny swore under the weight of Ponyboy as Ponyboy laughed and pinned him down.
Johnny wriggled round, trying to gather his cards so Ponyboy couldn't see them. "Aw, Johnnycake, give up the game, I've got you cornered, there's no way you can't show me your cards now. I call your bluff!"
Ponyboy shifted over the still moving Johnny until Johnny swore he could have felt something on his back, seemed the younger boy was enjoying the game perhaps more than he thought he'd would.
Johnny grinned, an idea forming in his mind. He reached out for the last card lying in the grass and Ponyboy reached for it too, his weight shifting off Johnny. Johnny took his chance and pushed Ponyboy up, flipping him onto his back next to him in the grass. Johnny grinned at the advantage and pinned the blonde boy down as he tried to get up.
"Oof!" The wind's knocked out of Ponyboy; he opened his mouth to protest but was silenced by Johnny's mouth. Now it's his turn to wriggle underneath the older boy but he stilled and his hand dropped the card as it went to grasp Johnny's hair as the kiss deepened, his fingers twisting in Johnny's hair.
The card lay forgotten in the green grass; the Ace of Hearts.