I'm being fancy shmancy. :D
Disclaimer: I doth not own The Outsiders. Whilst I would love them to be mine, they cannot be, for S.E. Hinton doth own them at this point and time, and possibly forever more. Thine sorrow at such a statement is not felt by me, for there is no sorrow to be felt. Thou art damn happy I doth not own even a corner of said book and it's characters. Thine lies do you no favor. I also don't own the song "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" (by Straylight Run). I'm also totally ripping off Artemis, who always manages to find and put the best song lyrics at the top of her chapters. I'm no where near as good, but I tried my best.
Rating: T for Teen! To be safe, and stuff.
Warnings: No major ones. I'm not a sex writer and while my language is at times quite colorful, things will not go beyond that. I am, however, able to be suggestive. Whether that offends you or not, I cannot say, but I doubt any suggestiveness will show up here... well, it might. This is, heaven forbid, a shipper fic. If you don't like it, you don't have too, but I tried my very best to make everything believable so, please, don't poke me in the eye.
Other Crap (apparently, I'm not being as fancy as I could be): This is definitely being chalked up as improbable circumstances and maybe even AU. Sorry. But I posted the picture that inspired this rambly fic in my livejournal. The link to that livejournal is in my profile. Don't hurt me if it's bad!
Happy New Year
"And all our sins come back to haunt us in the end/ to hang around and tap us on the shoulder..."
She knew she shouldn't have done it. She shouldn't have agreed to go to the party. She shouldn't have drank anything. She should have been more careful. But there was no taking it back now. She had done what she had done.
It was New Years Eve, and like everyone else, Sherri Valance believed in having a good time before the year ended and a new one began. She had taken her time to style her hair into light curls; had spent a half hour on her make-up with Marcia and a few other girls beside her. Had worn a black dress, because Marica had told her it made her skin, hair, and eyes look better. Sherri had been ready to have the time of her life.
What Sherri was not ready for was the location of the party; a neutral area where everyone seemed to be gathered. And, most of the time, an area where no one cared who you were. She had also not been ready for the pressure that everyone put on her to have one drink. Just one.
One drink turned into two, and she was working on her third as she danced, her hair a mess and a party hat set a bit precariously on her head.
But there was one thing that she was definitely, in no way, ready for. She was definitely not ready for Dallas Winston. If only the alcohol wasn't telling her otherwise.
As the night when on, Sherri's hair got messier, her walk got sloppier, and she lost a shoe. But it's not like a shoe mattered, right? You didn't need both shoes to get Dallas's attention. It may have been easier if she had jumped on a table and stripped off her dress, yelling at him to come and get her. But she wasn't that foolish. Not yet. And besides, what if Bob found out? That wouldn't bode well for the next day.
So she worked as carefully as one could when they were on the edge of a drunken stupor, using dancing, hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion all as excuses to get away from one person and move onto the next. And the next happened to be the one she was going after.
"Sorry, I have to make sure my friend isn't drinking anything else. I made a promise," Sherri said, slowly slipping away from whoever her last tool had been, and slipping that much closer towards Dallas. He was dancing with someone, a someone that Sherri did not know. A someone she found herself desperately wanting to be. Luckily, Marcia saved the day.
"Cherry! Cherry! I found your shoe!" she announced loudly. Apparently, Marcia had been swayed to drink as easily as Sherri had, or else she wouldn't have stumbled and knocked Sherri over. She landed safely on her rump, getting a bit of a rug burn on her thighs. Their loud laughter was enough to get anyone's attention. I'm sure you would have been wondering why someone was laughing a bit hysterically while holding a high heeled shoe too.
Sherri glanced in Dallas's direction as someone else helped her to her unsteady feet. When she finally caught his eye, she smiled, moved her head a bit to get her hair out of her face and successfully knocked that party hat right off her head. She didn't even look down as it was trampled. No, she was in a moment of glory as Dallas smirked, walked over and started working that special Dallas Winston charm. Not that he needed too. Sherri was already his, as far as she was concerned.
A bit of dancing, a bit of drinking, a bit of flirting, and a bit of walking got the two into a bedroom. I'm sure Dallas was thrilled when he realized he wouldn't have to do much to get Sherri to toss away her other shoe. To sit on the bed and hastily pull her dress over her head. To meet him with as much lust as anyone could ever hope to have.
Needless to say, the two weren't just kissing after a few minutes, and in their haste, in the heat of their desire, and through the haze of the alcohol, they hurriedly whispered the 'I love you's' as the rest of the clothes came off.
And while the alcohol had spurred a kind of teen romance found only in the best dramatic TV shows and books today, it forgot to remind Sherri to tell Dallas that she was still a virgin, that maybe this wasn't the best idea; it forgot to remind Dallas to take the time to think that maybe, just maybe, safe sex would be a good idea this time around. To consider Sherri's feelings.
Maybe she would have liked to have seen him there when she woke up, disoriented and sore; to hear the same 'I love you's' she had heard just a few hours ago. The one's she would have gladly accepted and shared.
But people make mistakes. Some are just bigger than others. It was something Sherri told herself as she slowly pulled her clothes back on later that morning. As she bit her lip to stop herself from crying as bits and pieces of what had happened came together.
She told herself that, maybe, he hadn't meant to leave her as she picked up her left shoe and slowly headed downstairs to look for the right. Maybe, she told herself, she had been too drunk for him to wake up before he put his clothes back on and walked out the door, eager to find a cigarette.
Sherri found her shoe with a boy that was sleeping on the floor. She carefully pried it away from him, and walked to an empty chair, which she dropped down on. Her shoes fell to the floor at her feet as one sob shook her body. It was the least her shoes could do, to stay by her side as she covered her face with her hands and cried, her makeup becoming even more ruined than it had been before.
No one else stirred, oblivious to Sherri's self pitying tears as they slept off their hangovers.
She calmed herself and pulled on her shoes, stumbling to where she knew the bathroom would be. The door was part way open. Carefully, Sherri peeked inside and was surprised to find Dallas, slumped against the bathroom wall.
Pushing the door open a bit more, the daylight quickly rushed in, revealing a realitively well kept bathroom, much to Sherri's relief. A few cautious steps and she was in the bathroom, standing across from Dallas who didn't seem to be keeping up a good relationship with his alcohol. He groaned and slowly raised a hand to try and cover his eyes. Anything to block out the light.
Sherri looked on with pity. True, her head was throbbing as well as the rest of her body, and her stomach was starting to churn, but she had the feeling that Dallas had been drinking a lot more heavily than she had.
Slowly, she lowered herself to the tiled floor, and after making sure Dallas wasn't going to retaliate, gently manuvered him so his head was resting on her lap, the rest of him curled in an almost fetal like position. She found herself praying that he wouldn't regain full health for a long time as his hand gripped at the fabric of her dress.
Sherri absently ran her fingers through his hair, so blonde that she found herself wondering if it had been white when he was younger.
She was glad she couldn't see herself in the mirror as her thoughts strayed to other things, causing her to dissolve into a mess of tears again. Dallas looked up at her unable to get his eyes to focus directly on her face. They would stray to her hair, to the ceiling, to her chest. He'd probably never know why he found it so hard to look her in the eye.
When Sherri noticed, she quickly began wiping her tears away, muttering about how unattractive she must of looked and apologizing for moving him.
Dallas looked at the wall and quite simply said, "No one looks pretty when they cry. You'd look fine if you'd stop."
Surprised, Sherri stared at him, before grinning and leaning down to kiss the boy on his forehead. In her mind, she had finally caught the elusive Dallas Winston; she hoped that Dallas was thinking the same of her.
"We'll get over it/ sad, strong, safe and sober..."