It was safe to go back to New York. So he would. New York was where all the action was.
He had no intentions of any sort of goodbye ritual. After all, he had only been there for two weeks. Then again, he had been in New York for three years, and didn't say any goodbyes when he left there either. There was no point. Dallas Winston cared for no one, and no one cared for him.
There was, of course, that one blaring exception. That kid.
He was almost finished packing his things, he almost got away unnoticed. But then he showed up.
He begged Dally not to leave. It wasn't safe in New York. Everyone had heard the stories he'd told; he'd barely made it out alive the first time. Surely he wouldn't be so lucky again. And why should he test his luck? Everything he needed was there in Tulsa. He had nothing in New York. He wouldn't be happy there.
Dallas didn't care. Dallas didn't care about anything. Especially not that kid.
oOoOo
It was 3 AM, and dead silent. The lack of oppressing silence was something he had to look forward to in New York. Not that it really mattered.
A shrieking train whistle tore through the still veil of night. His ride was here.
Dally took a quick glance over his shoulder; to check for nosy strangers, he told himself. He saw no one. Good.
He almost thought he would make it on the train without interference.
A soft voice called his name. Dallas spun around and glared daggers at whoever dared to interrupt him. He didn't have to turn to know who it was.
Before he could cuss him out and tell him that nobody tells Dallas Winston what to do, that kid opened his hand and offered a shiny piece of metal.
It had Saint Christopher on it. For safe travel on his trip to New York. He insisted Dally keep it, at least until he got there. He'd had it since he was young, thought it was good luck. He'd been wearing it on the day he and Dally first became friends.
Dallas asked if that was all he wanted, if he was gonna beg him to stay with him again. He said no.
Dally turned and headed towards the train. The kid held back for three, maybe four seconds before he disregarded what he had said.
The pleading was more desperate this time, raw emotions burning in those huge eyes. Those damned eyes.
Dally wouldn't survive in New York. He wouldn't be happy in New York. He wouldn't be Dally in New York.
Dally asked, rather impatiently, what the kid meant by that last part. He replied that he wouldn't be himself, because he would be a hood.
He was already a hood, though. The kid shook his head sadly, insisting passionately that he wasn't.
Dallas could have argued it, but what did it matter what the kid thought? Dallas didn't care about him. A week from now, those haunting black eyes would be nothing more than a disturbing memory.
New York was where hoods like him were meant to be, and it was where he would go. That kid couldn't stop him, and if he didn't want to ride home in an ambulance, he wouldn't try.
Turning his back yet again, he closed in on the train. He heard footsteps behind him, but honestly didn't think that kid would have the nerve to slow him down again.
He was wrong.
He felt the warm, thin hands wrapping around his arm, holding him back, as the kid told him that he would wait for him.
Anger boiled within him. This had to end, now. He had to cut off all the ties he had with this kid, end their apparent friendship, get him to stop caring. Damn his caring.
The soft, persistent voice was silenced by a loud smack.
Dally had hit Johnny.
Hard, right in the face. The entire time they'd been friends, he'd never hit him.
But he had to stop caring.
Dallas hopped on the train with finality, mentally cussing out the idiot conductor who wouldn't just leave the station already.
The shattering whistle blew again. The wheels began to turn.
Almost subconsciously, Dallas took one last glance through the open door of the freight train.
Johnny was gone.
oOoOo
The scenery changed quickly. The dingy neighborhoods grew less and less dense, the landscape getting more rural by the second.
At first, Dallas hadn't paid much attention to what was going on outside; it was hard to see anyway.
But he was starting to notice things, things he hadn't before. Houses, trees, wheat fields. The full moon, and a small lake that reflected it's glow.
These things made him feel strange. Normally, he would have ignored those feelings and turned away from whatever bothered him, but he was tired. So tired.
When he passed a dilapidated old farm house, an image flashed through his mind of the Curtis home. Johnny and him crashing on the couch, Johnny insisting he try chocolate milk.
The trees made him picture things that hadn't even happened yet. The leaves turning orange, a cool breeze blowing as he and Johnny laid there in the lot, exhausted after football. Picking out pumpkins, stealing Johnny some candy on Halloween.
He imaged chasing Johnny around in some wheat field, resistant at first but teased into playing along.
And the moon on the lake, he saw it as just that, but with Johnny by his side, spending the whole night there.
Dallas darted upright, and moved away from the open door. With painful certainty, he became aware of where he was, and where he was going. He would never have those experiences, never have that life.
It didn't hurt. If he didn't care, then it wouldn't hurt.
Since, after all, what was the point of caring? He couldn't change anything.
He had hit Johnny, he had hurt him. The only one who didn't see him as a bad guy, who didn't feel fear or disgust when looking at him. All he had felt for Dally was admiration and love.
Dallas knew that he wouldn't feel that way any more. He would hate him, for sure. He had seen Dally's true colors, had seen him for what he really was.
That life that he had imaged in his moment of vulnerability was gone now, for good. It was best that way, he wouldn't be tempted to turn back.
Now, he would fully become what he had tried to be since that first night in jail, and what he had thought he was up until his arrival in Tulsa.
Untouchable. Unfeeling. Unhuman.
Utterly and completely hardened.
And then he heard something.
A voice, a familiar voice.
Four short words, that would irrevocably and irreversibly determine his fate.
"I'm coming with you."
Dally couldn't deny it. He couldn't deny the rush of emotions that flooded through him, relief, joy, and something even better. He couldn't deny the very, very small tears that formed in the corners of his eyes. Because no matter how small they were, they were still there.
Johnny still loved him.
So much, in fact, that he was willing to leave his whole life behind without a moment's thought, just to be with Dally.
He couldn't say anything for a while, but when he did, all he could get out was four words of his own.
"You win. I'll stay."
oOoOo
That night was one of the best of their life, if only because it meant there would be better ones to come.
The spent the entirety of the night walking home, since they had gotten further from Tulsa than they had realized.
They walked at a steady pace, in order to be back before anyone would think to go looking for them.
However, they stopped to take one quick detour, when Dally insisted they stop by a lake he had noticed on the way out.
They had been making mindless conversation up until then, but now they were silent.
This was a new kind of silence. It wasn't oppressive and overwhelming to Dally. Rather, he felt peaceful. He felt happy.
Dally's eyes suddenly caught Johnny's again, looking into his own.
Johnny smiled softly, his eyes glowing. He tilted his head up towards Dally's, and this time he only spoke three words.
"I love you."
Dally's reply was quiet, heard not even by the nearby blackbirds beginning their early morning songs.
But nothing and no one knew him like Johnny did. For, if they had, they would have known that he had replied the same.