The hospital was so quiet at night. All Dallas could hear was the beep of the machines and the nurses' soft footsteps. He couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned under the stiff hospital sheets. He wanted a cigarette but wasn't sure what had happened to his in the whole mess. Probably got tossed out by someone. He scowled and shifted his weight again. Glanced at the clock. It was midnight, or just past. He had to go see Johnny.
He didn't like to admit it but Johnny made him crazy, all the worry this past week was driving him crazy. He wasn't sure he would have given up that Windrixville hideout for anyone else. Johnny. God, that kid. He still couldn't believe he had killed that soc. Johnny? It just did not seem believable to him. He'd been in some fights that had gone almost as far, killing far, and he knew what it was to kill someone and how it wasn't easy. So how could Johnny have done it?
But he knew, of course he knew. He'd seen Johnny after they dragged him from the lot half dead that time, his cheek just gushing blood from that gash, half-conscious. The soc he killed was probably involved in that.
Dallas slipped out from under the covers and stood chilled in just his underwear. He didn't even know where his clothes were, but then he saw a white bag on the chair. His clothes were in it, covered in soot and ash, but they were in it. He shook out his jeans and slipped them on, then crept to the door and peered out into the hallway. A nurse glided by, her hair pulled up into a neat ponytail, a white cap on her head. After she was around the corner he left his room and went into the hall, realizing he didn't even know what room Johnny was in, or even what floor he was on. He gritted his teeth.
There was a list of the patients behind the nurses' desk and he could just make it out from the shadows of the hall. He could see his own name but not Johnny's. He made it to the stair case without being seen and headed down one flight. This floor seemed busier, more beeps and odd machine sounds, and the nurses on this floor moved more quickly. This was probably the floor Johnny was on, since he was sicker. Dally knew he was worse, he'd seen him in the ambulance.
Avoiding being seen, Dally crept from one room to the other, looking at the names outside the doors. Finally he saw it, "J. Cade," He took a deep breath and shook for a second and then regained his cool. He'd found Johnny's room. He pressed on the door and went in.
Johnny lay still in the bed, his eyes closed. There was oxygen tubing in his nose, and IV's in both arms, the fluids hanging in glass jars from poles alongside the bed. Johnny was paler than he'd ever seen him, but he was breathing. Dally could see the soft rise and fall of his chest, and he could see the bandages. Johnny's upper arms and chest were bandaged, but Dallas had seen the burns in the ambulance, the red angry welts, the way his skin had peeled away, and Johnny had woken up in the ambulance at one point, crying in pain.
"Johnny," Dallas whispered, walking over to him. Johnny didn't stir or open his eyes and Dallas feared he was in a coma or something. He was afraid to shake him or even to touch him, afraid he'd hurt him, so he just said his name louder.
"Johnny," Johnny opened his eyes and turned his head toward Dallas' voice, and his movements were very slow and very drugged, but he saw him and smiled weakly.
"Hey, Dallas," he said, his voice scratchy from the smoke-inhalation.
"Hey, uh, how you doin', kid?"
"Alright," Johnny answered slowly, and Dally wondered why they even had to have this discussion like this. He wasn't doing alright. He looked like he might be dying. He had to be on some amazing pain killers, but he was wincing in pain every so often just the same, and he couldn't help but watch whatever the fluids were drip slowly into his veins. He wanted to tell him how sorry he was that he hadn't protected him somehow, that he wasn't there when the socs came after him and Ponyboy, that he hadn't got him out of that church on time. He wanted to tell him he was sorry, but he couldn't seem to say it.
"Good," he said. As he watched him Johnny gasped and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Dallas watched as he started to breath more slowly and evenly and his eyes were still shut but not squeezed tight against pain anymore. Then he opened them and saw Dallas' concerned look.
"I'm okay, it don't hurt like that all the time," Johnny said softly, and Dally had to lean down to hear him.
There was a chair in the corner and Dallas dragged it over, and he brushed Johnny's hair from his eyes before he sat down next to the bed.
"Alright, kid, you should get some sleep. I'm just gonna sit here for a while,"
"Okay," Johnny said, and he had looked half asleep the whole time anyway and slipped easily into sleep nearly the second he closed his eyes again, and Dally supposed the drugs had something to do with that. He watched him for a while, watched his breathing and watched the IV's and listened to the beeps of the machines that meant nothing to him. He went into a light sleep here and there but mostly he was awake, and watched over Johnny, willing him to get better. He needed him to get better.
And Dallas Winston always got what he wanted.