Prompt: Johnny died but Dally didn't. Nope, he lived because of Johnny Cade: To get even with the Socs. Jenny o'reilly (Cherry's twin) is coming back. At 4, her and her dad moved out. She was raised in England while Cherry was raised in Tulsa but now she's back. The parents are still divorced. They eventually forgot about each other (Jenny and Cherry.) Jenny is dressed more like a Soc but she doesn't act like one. Cherry acts like one. One day Cherry, Jenny and one of their friends stop by the Dx to hang out with the gang as Cherry always went by due to helping the Greasers in trial. She became their look out, but today she just wants to hang out with them and introduce the newest Soc and her twin. Tracey is Tracey Holden, Paul's sister from Wyoming. She also lived with a different set of parents and just came to Tulsa. Knew Cherry as a kid but then moved away (12) and is moving back. Dally wants Cherry, Soda wants Jenny, and Steve wants Tracey. It's about the 6 people falling in love, dealing with drama, and getting together.
* this is something like that.
A/N: Hey kids, long time no see! I know its been months since I last posted, but I did my best on this chapter after too many rewrites and tears, so here's something I vaguely like and hopefully the next chapter will be better. Thanks for your patience, enjoy!
Chapter 4:
"So will you be my plus one?" His voice is soft, hopeful. It makes Cherry's smile go rueful. After the last few weeks, he needed a break from all of the stress. What with his brothers arguing about the future and his ex-girlfriend Sandy trying to infiltrate back into his life, Sodapop needed a reprieve.
"Of course I'll go with you Soda." She replies softly, fingers reaching out to gently touch his arm. It was at that moment that her eyes chose to betray her and flicker over the middle Curtis's shoulder to the boy she was hoping would have asked her. His eyes were not paying any attention to her, though, instead focused on Darry, who was saying something that made the boy in question smile over the lip of his beer bottle.
When her eyes return to Soda's, his lips are tugged up into a crooked smirk that makes her cheeks flush to the shade of her name. Mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, she struggles to explain herself when the middle Curtis brother lets out a loud chuckle. Anxiously, she still tries to speak but Soda waves her off, "Cherry Valance, I love you like a sister. Not like…. that."
His nose wrinkles in the cutest of ways, and it's then that Cherry sees the sixteen-going-on-seventeen year old boy that Soc and Greaser girls alike gawked at as he passed down the hall at school — when he was enrolled— all bright clean teeth and crinkled eyes and luscious lips.
Still flushed, she shrugs, "I'm sorry for being so transparent."
He rolls his eyes at her, giving a quick shake of his head, "If I actually went after you, Dallas would whoop me into next week." Her brows furrow, and Soda raises his own at her, challenging her to ask what he means.
It's then that Ponyboy is teetering into the dining room with a steaming pot's handle quivering in hand, calling that dinner was ready and to help themselves. Cherry punches Soda lightly on the arm, slightly pleading, but Soda shrugs her off with his sexy chuckle and races Steve into the dining room.
It's when they all are settled in their chairs, passing the potatoes and bread rolls around that Two-Bit brings up the subject, "Should we be expecting a rumble tomorrow, Dar?" His voice is casual, but Cherry can see his arm around Marcia tense, jaw taut.
Darry bites his lip, contemplating this, when Dallas speaks up, "Whether or not they have a valid reason, you can bet the Socs will find a way to ruin our fun."
All of the boys make a soft noise of agreement, and then there's the soft din of many conversations going on at once — Cherry sits quietly and examines. Two-Bit is pressing a gentle kiss to Marcia's throat, smiling when she lets out a girlish giggle. Darry is quietly chewing his food, his actions similar to Cherry's, just observing. Jenny is laughing loudly at something Sodapop says to her down the table, a few stray peas plummeting onto the wooden table as she cackles. But it's Ponyboy, Dallas and Steve that pique her interest.
Steve Randle is crouched between Dallas and Pony, head bent close and whispering a quiet message to them. Ponyboy looks up to Dallas, perplexed, and Dallas' brows are furrowed, mouth carved into a frown on his face. There's a splotch of spaghetti sauce on the corner of his mouth, and Cherry's fingertips itch to swipe it away.
Dallas' eyes meet hers then, and she furrows her brows in confusion, What is it?
Shrugging it off, Dallas glances down at his heaped plate, tucking into his own food, but he must've glanced back up at her worried expression, because he chews, swallows, then mouths I'll tell you later.
A few minutes later, Dallas excuses himself from the table, giving her a pointed look as he exits into the kitchen, and the redheaded teen follows soon after, ignoring Soda's pointed look as she slips through the archway to meet her acquaintance.
"What happened?" her voice brims worriedly, and Dallas chooses not to comment, instead leaning against the counter, deep dark chocolate eyes burning against hers. She shivers involuntarily under his gaze as she hoists herself up onto the counter next to him, watching his facial expressions worriedly. Eyes unreadable, he plucks a cigarette from the pack in his leather jacket, lazily rolling it through his fingers, obviously waiting for her inquiries. His arms are crossed over his chest loosely, looking closed off but still calm.
Just as she is about to paw the information out of him, Cherry overhears Steve saying that they're picking up a game of football outside and that they're not waiting for the duo to finish their 'business'. He says it in a funny way, and she goes pink with frustration and embarrassment. Dallas rolls his eyes, as if repulsed by the prospect, making her heart sink pathetically.
Exhaling, she looks up and her breath hitches when she sees him staring at her, brown eyes warm as they bore into hers, and she haphazardly glances down at his mouth as his lips move. It takes her a minute to realize that he's speaking.
"Steve is bringing a Soc girl to the picnic tomorrow."
At first, she doesn't know how to react. His eyes are watching her closely, taking in her perplexed expression, eyebrows furrowed so tightly that wrinkles carve themselves into her forehead. Just as quickly, though, her face clears and she slides off the counter, mimicking his stature, arms crossed over her torso, "She must be really special if y'all are worried about her bein' there."
There's an audible pause before Dallas kind of lets out a laugh, a choked sort of thing, as he leans behind her —she can smell the nicotine in his breath and the styling grease in his hair and she has to prevent herself from coughing to make sure that she doesn't inhale (because she didn't know what her body would do in response to his scent) — to open the window, letting the chill of October into the house.
Slipping his hand into his pocket, he finds a light and lets the cig beam a soft glow and presses it between his slightly chapped lips. She watches, mesmerized as he inhales the smoke and a stormy gray cloud spouts from his pouted lips. It's then that his eyes mold over her face, taking in the look of intrigue on her face.
One late night, he'd asked her why she was looking at him like that, and she told him, plain and simple: Smoking kills, but it looks so intriguing. She must've seen the raise of his eyebrow because she explained, people who smoke make it look so… attractive. He had known his face wore amusement, but her glaring expression had dared him to laugh.
"— so?" He snaps out of his stupor at her confusion, "what's so special about her?" If she noticed he had zoned out, she didn't say anything.
"It's not about her," he told her, watching the many emotions warding her expression, "it's mainly about who her brother is."
When she doesn't reply, he uses it as an excuse to take another drag. Scraping the burned cinders against the house, he glances back at her— blue eyes cloudy, calculated. Yearbook pictures are skimming through her mind, trying to find a boy whose younger sister would be old enough to fool around with Steve.
After a copious amount of struggling, the tension in her shoulders deflates, giving up. When she stews back to reality, Dallas is staring at her, the filter of the cigarette centimeters from his glossy lips. When her eyes flicker back, his stray out to the window, flicking a loose ember off the tip of his cig, and hers to the school pictures hanging above the refrigerator.
On the far left was Soda's sophomore yearbook picture which he claimed was his favorite because those were his 'glory' days. The middle was of Ponyboy when he was five years old, a picture taken in the empty lot, back when their parents were alive. He had lost his first tooth then, holding it up with a triumphant grin, the faint trace of blood dribbling down his chin, with his mother half in frame, unfolding tissues and reaching out to swipe the blood away. Farther back in the shot are the rest of the Greasers, jogging in after Mr. Curtis had called a time out — Pony had told her that story the first time she visited the Curtis house. He saw her staring at it and pulled it off the wall and gave her the whole rundown, pointing out each Greaser and explaining how they had all reacted and how he hit the winning run of the game after that.
Darry's high school graduation picture was on the far right. It was taken farther back, and all of the Greasers were tucked around him, smiling, boxing him in a bear hug, and she catches Dallas and Johnny in the background, arms around each other's shoulders as they gather to almost completely conceal Darry with their love.
The sound of the window closing snaps her of her reverie, and she watches Dallas swipe his hands on his jeans, looking at her expectantly.
Sighing, she states, "I give up! Do I go to school with him?"
Shaking his head. Dallas leans back against the sink, a small strip of tanned skin revealing itself, "He graduated."
"What year?"
Dally pauses, as if he knows she'll get the answer the minute he says it, but then he shrugs, trying to play off his nerves when he says, " I dunno, Darry's year?"
It's then that all of the jumbled jigsaw pieces scatter and reform into one big picture, "Paul."
Paul Holden, the best halfback on the football team the year Darry graduated, was Social filth. He was also, once upon a time, the eldest Curtis brother's best friend, and, as far as Cherry knew, did not have any sisters — just a little brother, sixteen years younger.
When Cherry relays this information to Dallas, he just shrugs again, a look relative to relief colors his features, "He only said she was Paul's sister. Had a name that started with a T….. Tana… Terri… Tammy..? He trails off, and she can tell that he knows exactly what her name is, but he's trying to fool her.
The jigsaw puzzle clicks tighter into place, and she feels horror mar her features as she inquires, "Tracey?"
Dallas jumps up into a straightened posture, snapping his fingers, "That's it!" but then he stops, fear spreading across his face, "Wait… you do know her?!"
"Yeah," she replies absentmindedly, still trying to absorb the fact, "we were friends when we were fourteen — well, I was fourteen, she was fifteen — but then she moved away…"
Her mother had been very vague when she woke Cherry up that crisp autumn morning three years ago to tell her that her best friend had taken a train to Illinois the night before to visit her great aunt for a while…
In the end, Cherry had translated her mother's message into she got into some trouble and no, you cannot know anything about it — and she had pondered on that for a while, but then, as a fourteen year old, she had moved on and Tracey Holden was completely forgotten. How naive, how stupid, the redhead cursed herself.
Now that she thought about it, Cherry realized that her old friend had recently turned eighteen years old, was now classified as an adult. "Is she back for good — do you know?"
Snorting, Dallas stared at her with an unreadable expression, "Beats me. I don't even know how they met." He cringed. She wondered if he was picturing how well the duo had actually gotten to know each other — her stomach tumbled unhappily at the thought. What was she like now? Had she changed? In the last few years, the redhead knew she had changed a lot since the beginning of high school, but she knew Tracey probably didn't leave Tulsa on the best terms, but—
"Sherri, snap out of it!" Out of her reverie she comes, and she finds Dallas staring at her, clutching her face in his hands, eyes brimming with worry.
It's then that there is a squeal of tires and Cherry feels her stomach plummet to her feet. Her eyes clue back in when Dallas lets go of her face and runs toward the front of the house, telling her to wait there, but she still finds her feet following him into the living room. Right when she gets through the archway leading from the dining room into the living room when the rocks start flying.
Dallas is screaming at her, and then all she feels is pain, and the world slowly fades to black.
Seeing her lying there… He rubs his eyes, moving himself off that train of thought. Those lifeless eyes. He can't get them out of his mind, even though he's sitting right next to her sleeping body on the couch of the Curtis house.
"I can't fucking believe them!" Ponyboy states hotly, pacing through the shattered glass in the center of the living room.
"I can." Dallas states, and ignores the exasperated look on Ponyboy's face at that, and rolls his eyes, pressing his clasped hands over his mouth.
"So what are we going to do?"
Jenny's voice snaps them out of their stupor, and at all of the incredulous looks she receives, she raises her hands up as if in surrender, "What?!"
"We can't do anything about it!" Steve speaks up, "We'll get shot."
At this, Jenny stops, perplexed. "Why do they think they have the right to treat you like you're less than them!" No one really knows what to say to this. Because we're poor, Dallas ventures. Because we're nothing to them, we're a waste in their eyes.
"She has yet to understand the systems of Tulsa, boys. Don't wonder your pretty little brains about it." It's a strained girlish voice and everyone's eyes snap to the uneasy posture Cherry carries herself with as she moves to sit up. Reaching up, she feels the broken skin where the golf-ball sized rock had shot at her temple.
Dallas immediately pulls her against him, leaning her against his shoulder to keep her steady and upright. Ignoring the raised eyebrows he gets, he sweeps the hair away from her wound, inspecting it as if they hadn't spent a solid half an hour cleaning it out. "Any brain damage Red? Can we treat you like an equal now after knocking your IQ points down?"
Weakly she pushes him away but falls back into him, "Shut up!" Her face tucks into his neck dopily, as she continues faintly, "What happened — use small words so my lacking IQ can understand."
Chuckling, Dallas pulls back to look her in the eyes as he goes to respond, but Soda speaks up then, "The Socs rolled up with rocks and threw them through our windows—" He pauses while Cherry squints around at the front picture window, now letting frigid October air course through, "and one of their stones came through the opening and grazed your head. Luckily, nothing too deep to give you brain damage." the middle Curtis winks at Dallas then, and a sick feeling tumbles unhappily in the eighteen-year-old's stomach.
Dallas raises a confused eyebrow before standing and making an excuse to go smoke a cigarette. Soda must've gotten the hint, as a few minutes after Dally lights up on the back porch, the middle Curtis joins him, snagging the cig and taking a drag.
For a few moments, they sit in silence, Soda still possessing Dally's cig. Reaching in his jacket pocket for another, he inquires, "What was that wink about?"
"What wink?"
The thing about Sodapop was that he was convinced he was a good faker, but in reality, he was an open book. With his dopey smile and crinkled eyes, he could be mistaken for a golden retriever.
"The one you gave me and Cherry, you dick."
Chuckling, Soda presses the tip of the cig back to his mouth. "I did no such thing."
Scoffing, Dally takes another drag, "Whatever you say, kid."
For a while, they just lean against the wooden railing, watching the sunset fade through smoke-coated air between them. It's just when the sun is dipping behind the trees and Dallas is crushing his cigarette when Soda speaks again, voice sounding weary, "You care a lot for her, don't you?"
Raising an eyebrow, Dal looks over, taking in the way Soda's playful eyes had turned sorrow and his mouth set into a downward curve. It didn't look good on him; he looked like he aged twenty years. It made Dallas's stomach tumble again. He hated when Soda was upset, mostly because it was so rare and his smile was one of the nicest Dallas Winston would probably ever see.
"Who?" he inquires, but they both know who they're talking about. After a moment, he ventures vaguely, "You all know I feel for her the way I feel for the rest of you."
Their eyes clash at that moment, and he sees the cogs in Soda's head working, processing this information.
"Not anything more?" he doesn't sound convinced as their eyes return to the blackening sky.
"Nope." Dal replies flatly, "nothing more."
They both know it's a lie, but Soda doesn't say anything. The younger boy seemed to understand him completely, and they both leave it at that.
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" his voice cracks, almost completely swallowed by the rest of the gang saying their goodbyes to Jenny and Marcia. Dallas had pulled her aside after coming back from his cigarette, his hand resting on her neck as he looks into her eyes.
Cherry tries —and fails— to keep her pulse from thundering under the touch of his calloused hands, "I'm sorry, did I just hear Dallas Winston say something caring?" she hates when that deflated look gets on his face; then again, she would never tell him that but still.
His lips carve up into a chuckling grin, "You must've imagined it. I'm Dallas Winston, I don't care about anyone or anything." Chuckling, she gently pries his hand off of her neck, much to her own dismay, but she still holds his big hands in her slightly smaller ones.
"Okay, maybe I did. But if I didn't, then you don't have to worry." Releasing his fingers, she backs away smiling when she sees the corner of his lips lift higher, and then she's gone.
It's when she turns and locks eyes with a familiar pair of blues orbs much like her own that her heart drops to the floor. Shoulders tensed, her eyes dip to the floor as she and Jenny brush shoulders when the other redhead makes her way over to Dally, who was now flicking his lighter open and closed.
Head turned, Cherry runs into something solid— looking up, she sees Sodapop staring after her twin, watching as Jenny reaches up and whispers something in Dallas's ear, causing the darker haired man to chuckle.
"Soda?"
As soon as she was touching him, she wasn't. Soda was out of the house in the blink of an eye, the screen door squealing in his wake. It's then that everything pauses, and Cherry finds herself looking at the remaining Curtis brothers for some kind of explanation — though she thinks she already knows.
Ponyboy is looking back at her, his soft eyes veering from her and the couple farther back, who were now staring with raised and furrowed brows, and back. When Cherry's eyes meet the glassy pale turquoise of Darry's, is when his eyes finally land on hers.
Before anyone says anything, Cherry states, "I'll go find him."
She gets to the door when Two-Bit states, "You're not going alone." All eyes trace to him then and he shrivels up at the attention, "ya know, with your injury and that."
"I'll be fine." No one seems convinced, but Cherry uses that to her advantage as she slips out of the house, following the footprints stamped down in the dewy grass toward the empty lot. Staying in the shadows, she slips through the broken gates and finds Sodapop running. Supposedly he was a great athlete when he was in school, even though he smoked on the occasion and wreaked havoc with the 'wrong crowd.'
The redhead could tell now as he briskly finished his lap at the sight of her, and slowed his paced to a jog as he made his last few paces to her. Looking into his eyes, she can see that his guard had broken and there was a few stray tears dribbling off his chin. Breathing ragged, his palms find his knees as he lets out a shallow cough.
"Man, I shouldn't have smoked today." he gets out between his chokes. Ignoring that, Cherry stands and waits. After a period of silence, Soda meets her eyes and lets himself fall on his ass. "What?"
"You like Jenny, don't you?"
A/N: Well kids, this chapter has been rewritten at least seventeen times (and I'm not exaggerating.) But I kind of like this version, and I knew I needed to post something after months of a semi-hiatus. So, here's a chapter. Hopefully the next one will be up soon!
