Title: Nobody's Listening

Rating: T

Plot Summary: Johnny's parents pass away, and the cause of their death leads him to a nasty discovery about himself. (To have multiple chapters: Future fic)

Warnings: Yaoi in future chapters, as well as angst.

Comments:

Donnie Darko inspired. Johnny, in my mind, would eventually grow a little bit bitter growing up. Some of these thoughts will be very OOC compared to sixteen year old Johnny Cade, but I'm striving for something completely untouched in The Outsiders fanfiction catagory, so bear with me.

xxxx

If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law; there would be no rule.
There would only be you and your memories.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I didn't see anything."

The words repeated over and over in Johnny's head, and eventually came out emotionless as he watched the police officer. His tongue seemed to become numb in his mouth when he tried to say anything more - He had not yet fully comprehended everything going on in his spinning, troubled head. The man made a 'humph' sound, turned on the heel of his black shoes. The news had just hit him suddenly, like a ton of bricks, and now Johnny wasn't sure how to feel or what to say. It would seem he should be sad, yes, scared, maybe… But all he felt was relief washing over him. They were both pronounced dead when he got there, tired eyed and confused. He watched them zip up the trash bag and bitterly remarked to the officer that they belonged there, because they were garbage. They had never been anything better, but he hadn't expected himself to be brave enough, cruel enough, to get the words out.

As far as he knew, his mother had always been desperate and clingy and cold. When they still lived in Mexico when he was young, he would flip through his grandmothers' photo albums and catch sight of a rail-thin woman with stunningly dark eyes. In every picture, even if her lips were upturned in a grin, she looked sad. She had always been that way – Tragic from birth to death. His father had always swallowed too much of the poison, watched too much TV, and raised a hand in anger more often than he should have. This Johnny knew from experience. No photo album was required to tell him that his father had been angry all his life.
Officer Abbey told him everything. She explained how the night had been quiet and dark, and nobody had been expecting trouble on Christmas Eve. She told him how most of the cops had retired to their homes, expecting the 'bad kids' to be drinking the night away in celebration of the coming new year and the birth of Christ. Half of them weren't even religious by their actions (Thou shalt not steal?) but nevertheless; it was time of year for joy, celebration, and love. Even those who did not believe in God knew that, and they toasted to the coming year and the things that waited for them in the beginning of the new life. A clean slate, a new year… It was something to behold.

Maybe it was a stupid perception. Greasers were Greasers no matter the day, even if it was the 24th of December. Smoke had billowed from the Cade household from the spreading fire that Abbey had suspiciously concluded, "Might have been from a bad mix of alcohol and cigarettes". It wasn't until after they discovered the can of diesel fuel, lying gently in the grass and the investigation shifted, the scent of gas mixing with the scent of rotting meat and burnt wood. The flames had engulfed the house wholly, and Johnny liked to think that it lit up like a thousand Christmas trees, hell fire dancing around it and slipping in through the open window cracks, passing through the walls, melting down the wood and plastic inside. All of the bottles of beer, glass or cans, had been melted down. All the cigarettes had been lit up and burn to crisps. Finally, there was the two wastes of life within the walls, crying out loud for someone to help them, then collapsing on the ground all black and dead from licking flames, bodies smoldering. He wondered if his mother, hair burning, lips chapped and black eyes suddenly empty, had a halo of fire ablaze behind her bloodied scalp, peeling back skin. It was a gruesome thought and he shuddered at it, shaking his head.

He was almost eighteen. He was only a few months shy of his next birthday. He could live on his own.

The problem was he felt himself growing more and more frustrated with each passing month. Since he was fifteen, his innocence had started to fade away. He was growing more and more bitter, even if he hated to admit it. Such thoughts of death would never have entered his mind at fifteen, and at sixteen he would have been appalled. However, now, at age seventeen, he felt something in him slowly changing. It was a little voice in his head that reminded him that the world was a real fucked up place. It reminded him of his parents, of the dirtied streets of downtown Tulsa. He saw suddenly the vacant lot in his minds-eye, more of a home than his fired up house had ever been.

The ambulance closed its back doors, and Johnny watched the blood red cross fade into the distance. He smirked, half bemused. Why were they taking them to the hospital? They were already dead. No heartbeat or anything. For once he was thankful for his fathers drinking, because the alcohol that dripped down his shirt had made all the difference in the world.

He had never wanted his father to die. As angry and hurt as he was by him, he had never cursed death on him. He had always believed he could fix whatever they had between them, but it was just after his seventeenth birthday he had given up. He spent as much time away from home as he could, deciding it was better that way, and he had made the crucial decision to let go of everything he had been trying to hold near and dear to his heart. Family? He didn't have a real one; the gang was all he had. They were all he would ever have.

Johnny reached up to run his fingers through his jet-black hair. Since his earlier years, it had grown in length, falling nicely to the middle of his back. He liked it that way. The bangs had grown out, too, and he brushed them aside profusely. He could never consider cutting them. They were a part of him, after all.

Finally, Officer Abbey approached him, this time with finality in her voice. "It was arson," She concluded. She placed her hand between his shoulder and neck, a startling white against the dark tan of his skin.

"We'll be sure to catch whoever did this, son." Her voice was soothing and sad, and he knew she wanted to help, but he shook his head. "No," He said quietly, and as her eyebrow rose he met her green gaze with his own, endlessly black pools of color staring suddenly back at her. "That's… okay. Really."

She seemed to understand he wasn't the kind of greaser lucky enough to have parents that were trying at the very least.

He looked away, she touched his face, he wriggled away from her icy touch, and then she backed off.

Now there was silence between them, unspoken questions hanging in the air. Johnny just turned to leave, and Officer Abbey wondered where the innocence went in his eyes. She thought about it without knowing how often Johnny wondered that to himself, and tried to map a timeline in his mind to find out when the bitter sickness finally took him. When did the innocence give way to indifference, the child-like charm too dark thoughts, the sadness to angst? When was it that he changed?

He was not sure he liked this new Johnny. He was to grown up, to adult, saturated in depression. When did I become so selfishly sick? He thought, shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose black jeans. His parents were dead, they had died in a horrible way, and he realized suddenly he had been smiling since he heard the news.

That must have been why Abbey, with confusion in her emerald eyes, had looked at him the way she had.

"Jack!" The nickname made him stop in his tracks, and he lifted his head. His view changed suddenly from gravel and mud to the face of a boy a little younger than he was, looking at him with concern. Every once and a while they would call him 'Jack', and he liked it better than the affectionate "Johnnycake". It sounded tuff, it sounded smooth, maybe even a bit dangerous. "I'm fine," He answered, and Ponyboy simply stared with a befuddled look reflecting in his grayish green eyes. They had the habit of darkening under suspicion, which Johnny was prepared to endure. "You're not," The other boy concluded. "Don't lie to me."

Like Johnny, Pony had grown his hair out – It fell now in waves of reddish-brown, flowing gracefully to a halt on his shoulder blades. Jack was two years his senior, and he looked it, too. Even though he had always grown up as the 'scrawniest' of the group, he was still taller than Ponyboy, and his height showed it. He had never been very tall growing up, but it seemed when he started really eating (which he only started to stop fueling Ponyboys worried accusations that he was getting too thin) he had grown a few inches at the least. It had paid off in feet over the years.

He looked better like that, tall and thin beneath baggy jeans and hoodies. That's what Pony always thought. It made him look more mysterious, more appealing to the young females of his age group. Of course, none of those females ever got dates. There was only one girl Johnny had ever been serious about, a Soc by the name of Kathy Gumwood. It hadn't worked out well.

It wasn't the social classes that caused friction in their relationship. No, Kathy wasn't like the rest of them. She was sweet and kind and not judgmental in the least. She had approached Johnny in a hallway full of Soc's when he feared tiptoeing near her, and kissed him squarely on the lips for everyone to see. She hadn't been afraid, and told him he shouldn't have to be, either.
Pony never got the full story out of him. Johnny would have choke it out and then cry a little and dismiss it, or simply sink into a depressive state and tell him to leave it alone. Maybe a year or two ago, he would have pushed it, but Johnny had grown up and everyone knew it – And Ponyboy Curtis was very aware of it.

"I ain't lying to you," The older boy persisted, and his eyes begged for Pony to let the subject stay buried.

This was normally where the sixteen year old would give up, but as they kept walking, he just turned up his chin at Johnny. "We're all real worried about you," He stated, studying the other male for some kind of indicator of emotion or feeling. Johnny made sure his telltale eyes were covered with his hair, making it that much harder to read him. "Especially Dally. I know he doesn't act like it…"

"But he cares," Johnny finished quietly, not glancing up. Ponyboy nodded, and Johnny caught it in the corner of his eye. "Look, I know everyone's worried about me. I'm worried about me." There was a sudden hush between them, as if trembling the wrong word would cause him to drop the conversation. Pony felt the tension too, and just watched him for a moment, reaching over to hold his hand. He knew Johnny loved affection – It was just something he subtly gave away during their near five-or-more year friendship. Johnny made the move to interlace their fingers, but he didn't look up at him.

"You don't got to hide from me, Johnnycake. I ain't gonna make fun of you," He assured him, but Johnny only grinned.
"I know." Johnny's eyes glittered like dark jewels beneath his bangs, the scarce lights causing the highlights to reflect the world in front of him. Pony could see himself clearly now that he was facing him. What perfect, glossy eyes.

"Do you?" He asked. He wasn't going to get out of the conversation just by agreeing and batting his eyelashes.
"Yah. I do." The definite tone of his voice suggested to Pony that he meant what he said. He cared, he heard him, and he was grateful for his friends comforting words and the day ahead.

The conversation was brief but it meant the world to both of them. They continued to walk hand in hand in the early Sunday morning light. It was the day of the Lord and his parents had passed away.

It must have been true, then, what they said. If He was there at all, he worked in mysterious ways, putting Johnny through years and years of torment with no good outcome except the transformation to bitter street waste before taking away the miserable cause.

Johnny doubted often He was there. All of that was part of a sadistic test if He was, and if He wasn't… Where had he been all his life? Where had the Guardian Angels been when his father shoved him so many times against the snow black walls, shoved himself against him (but not without a few good bruises)?

Where was he all those times Johnny felt like dying?

God worked in mysterious ways.