Don't feel. Don't feel. Don't feel.

Dally could feel himself slipping. His head was whirling, his eyes were blurred. Anger, pain, grief, sorrow, and loneliness coarsed through his veins. All of the terrible emotions that he had long ago swore he would never put himself through again. But it felt right to be feeling them- something like that happening to someone like Johnny deserved to be mourned. Dally had a hunch that even if he hadn't been close to Johnny, even if he had never met or heard of him, his death would have brought him pain. He just couldn't see himself existing without him.

And yet he was still here.

Don't feel. Don't feel. Don't feel.

The calm in that convenience store masked the storm that was brewing inside him. He felt like a ticking time bomb, just waiting to go off. Come to think of it, he had always been ready to blow, but seeing Johnny like that... so still... it had lit the fuse. It was only a matter of time now.

Don't feel. Don't feel. Don't-

"Buy something or get out, you hood!"

A hood. That was what he had always been seen as. Practically his entire life, he had been looked at with hatred, like he was trash, the scum of the earth. All he saw when he walked down the street were stares of either disgust, fear, or both. He had been too numb, too hard for this to bother him directly. But he sure noticed it- it nestled itself in his psyche and became a part of who he was. He accepted that.

That was, of course, until he met Johnny. Scared little Johnny, who was afraid of everything. Everything but violent, rough Dallas. But that was because he didn't see him that way. He wasn't scared off by his tough exterior. Unlike everyone else in the world, he didn't see a hood - he just saw Dally. And he saw him as his hero.

Johnny had been the first person in the world to ever truly get close to him. The only one who understood him, cared for him, and loved him. The way his sensitive black eyes glowed whenever he looked at Dally made him feel like he was worth something, for the first time in his life. But now Johnny was GONE, and so was the last drop of humanity he had left.

Now he really was a hood, and he made that pretty clear to the shop owner, with a little help from his heater.

With a sack full of money, Dallas ran back into the night. It felt more fitting than the store. The seemingly eternal darkness of that night paralleled his life. His life had no light without Johnny, and neither did the world around him.

It had always amused Dally how things seemed to come full circle, in the most bitter of ways. It was a night just like this one when he had met Johnny.

He had been roaming the deteriorated, hopeless streets of Tulsa, when he had seen a slim figure illuminated under a street light.

He had been in that one horse town- or at least one horse compared to the Big Apple- for two weeks, and had not yet jumped a single person. So he lurked towards his prey with a hunger- a yearning... although only now did he realize that it wasn't for what he thought it was then.

When he had stepped under the circle of light created by the street lamp, the kid had turned around, and before Dally could take a swing, their eyes met.

Dallas had never believed in fate, destiny, or any of that shit, but he couldn't deny that in that moment, he felt something, for the first time in years. As his cold, icey blue eyes met that kid's emotional, passionate ones, it was as if the whole world dropped out around him and all that was left were his big black eyes. It could best be described as an out of body experience. Not that Dally believed in that.

Either way, he couldn't seem to manipulate his body right, and mentally cussed himself for succumbing to whatever the hell was going on right then. He was leaving himself vulnerable, giving this kid an oppurtunity to fight back and leave him being the one who got mugged instead.

But he didn't. He just looked at him with understanding, and offered him some lose change and a pack of smokes - all that he had with him. Dally was furious and wanted to clobber that kids head in, but instead snatched his possessions and told him to get lost, as if he had gone through with jumping him.

As he watched the dark haired boy walk away, he felt a sudden urge to ask him his name.

Turning around and smiling, he responded "Johnny Cade."

It was pretty fascinating, in a sick, agonizing way, how a name so foreign back then could ring with such a deep hurt now.

Johnny. Johnny Johnny Johnny.

It was killing him. Tearing him apart from the inside out, because all he wanted to do was say that name one last time and get a response. Hear that soft, gentle voice say his name again, hear the deep admiration and love in his tone as he sighed "Dally."

Why, oh why couldn't he have realized this sooner? Why did it have to take Johnny's death for him to open up enough to become aware of how he felt about him.

For years, years, he had had his Johnny in his life, and had never fully accepted that he had cared about him. That thought had terrified him, for the obvious reasons, so he had kept himself in denial, kept telling himself that he could never love anyone. Surely, he had only felt sick after he was jumped because of how brutal the socs could be to a kid, not because of anything else.

Maybe he would have accepted that he cared about someone, had society had not been the way it was. If he hadn't learned from a young age that the only way to protect himself was to be tough and feel nothing. He hated the world. He had always hated it, but now he felt nothing but that hate- consuming, suffocating hatred for everyone and everything. THEY took his Johnny, THEY didn't let him fully enjoy the time he had had with him.

Not one thing in this cruel world had loved him, except Johnny. And only now did it hit him that he had loved Johnny back. He had been the only thing he loved. The only good thing in his life, the only good thing in the world. And now... now he was gone.

Dallas wanted to be gone too.

He hadn't really thought about what happens after death before, but in that moment, he prayed for there to be a heaven, an after life, somewhere- anywhere he could be with Johnny again.

Wherever Johnny was, Dally wanted to be there. All he wanted was to be with his Johnny, and Dallas Winston always got what he wanted.

So even as he heard the police's guns echo in the night, even as he fell to the ground, he didn't fear death, didn't regret it.

After all, he had been dead since the moment Johnny shut his eyes.

His vision faded to darkness, his body was over taken by numbness.

It was all over now.

Or was it?

Thanks for reading! Sorry for not updating sooner, I've been sick. This was the last depressing chapter about Dally, it's gonna get happier from here. Thanks again to everyone who commented, followed, and favorited!