this premise is based on palm springs, title from the song "lovers" by timecop1983 ft. SEAWAVES.
i.
the breeze that comes down here never changes, day to day. the sky never changes into a storm, and the sunrise that he sees is always a riot of color that he never tires of. he always climbs out of his window around the same time, before his brothers wake up, and waits. sometimes he dozes off while waiting, and curly shepard wakes him. sometimes he doesn't wake at all until he feels a hand in his hair, and he knows exactly who's found him here.
almost every morning is like that, and this one isn't different when he feels lips against his. he opens his eyes, and above him is dallas, a half smirk on his face, pulling back, until the sky is back in pony's vision. there's a cold breeze that travels through, and he says, "you know what day it is?"
dallas laughs, and ponyboy feels his fingers hook around his arms. he's pulled into dallas' lap, and he's not surprised when dallas says, "same day we always wake up in."
ponyboy has lost count, too.
he supposes that it's been years now, and he knows that if he had been going through this alone, he would have gone crazy.
maybe he's crazy, now, even.
ii.
there are always little deviances depending on what they do. sometimes, dallas has bucks' car with him, and they drive out of tulsa to oklahoma city. it takes hours to do it, and a few times, they've gotten into accidents going too fast, or the fuzz has caught them on the road. sometimes he's sure dallas does the second on purpose, but a few times, pony has gotten them caught because he wasn't as good in the previous loops, or because he'd genuinely lost track of things.
the first genuine accident had been awful; he'd been dying in the noon sun of a stomach wound, dallas handcuffed. he'd sobbed then, as the pain had taken him, and dallas was hollering his own guts out. he'd died, and when he'd woken back up in his bed when the day reset, he found that he was still gasping from remembered pain. dallas had found him in record time, and they'd spent that loop in his room, dallas reminding him of one of the first things he had learned when he'd been stuck: pain always stuck, pain still remained pain no matter what they did. it was easier to die quick and force the day to reset itself rather than to die slow and awful.
he hadn't asked what it had been like to watch. it hadn't been the first time ponyboy had died in front of him, but the first time it had truly been an unforeseen accident.
after that, they drove more careful usually. sometimes though, the same day got boring, the same route got boring. sometimes it was a lot more fun to drive a little buzzed and outrun a cop or to just pull over so they could spend sometime somewhere different for awhile.
the little deviances matter when it was always the same hours.
iii.
"how many times did you come to see me, before this?" he had asked it during a night, back when he was still counting the loops. this one was the twelfth one, and they were sitting at the fountain. dallas had looked at him with an expression that ponyboy could only think of was wary. it was before dallas had told him everything, before pony knew that in the original timeline, his head had been pushed under the water, that he had almost drowned. his hand had still shook then, hand coming up to take a drag from his cigarette.
dallas had blown out a bit of cool air from his mouth. "fuck, maybe… forty times?" there was that weariness in his voice again, that ponyboy still hadn't gotten used to. the shock of forty fell inside of him, huge and almost unfathomable. "it wasn't like how i met up with sylvia," he threw a wry smirk, "sometimes i'd just ask you to read to me. or we'd go out alone instead of taking johnny."
"was that night the first time we-," he can't exactly say the words again, ears burning red even though he's not ashamed, doesn't lean away.
the grin that dallas gives him speaks for itself.
definetely wasn't the first time they'd had sex. no.
iv.
even though dallas tells him that it won't work, the fifth loop, ponyboy journeys out alone. he hops the freighter that dallas told him in that life where he almost died, tries to get out there. and like dallas told him, it dissolves. he winds up back in his bed, the clock the previous day, showing two-am, the time he woke up from a dream with soda's arms wrapped around him.
they can't get out. they can't go back to any point further than this.
v.
they don't make verbal promises. they just happen, that if dallas doesn't find him at the house or the field by noon, ponyboy knows he's at bucks', unable to get out of bed. he knows that he will go up and inside. he will open the door, kick off his shoes, and climb into bed with dallas. even if he is tired, if he wakes up wishing that the day could finally change, he knows that he won't leave dallas alone like this. too, he knows, that if he stays in bed, if he can't make his way out by the same time, dallas will always come too. he'll crawl into bed with ponyboy too, and they will stay there until the day resets again, and they have to find each other again.
maybe it's survival. maybe it's love. maybe it's neither and both.
vi.
they can't force the day to rain. they can sneak into the school and use the pool there on days they get bored. dallas teaches him how to swim, and they both figure out how to dive, how to do more with the time they have. they can sneak into rich people's houses, go through their things and use infinite loops to practice how well they can do it - all with the promise that if something goes wrong, they'll make it quick for each other.
it's fucked up. ponyboy doesn't like it the first time dallas gets shot unexpectedly by bob's mother, and he has to think of something quick to end the pain for dallas before it drags on too long. his hands shook, using the switch blade he'd taken from his brothers to jab it into dallas' neck. he hated to have to slash his wrists right after, to try and get them out before things got worse. it had taken him awhile to get over it, even when dallas told him he'd done a good job, even when dallas told him that when he'd done all of this alone, it had been much, much worse.
if this was all normal, this would never happen. if they could find a way out, it could change.
they can't, though. ponyboy knows what it's like to have dallas' blood on his fingers.
vii.
he tries not to think too much of the look on dallas' face, on the sound he made the first time he had to kill ponyboy to reset the day. it had been the third loop, before he accepted everything. he had gone on with the day, had made it to the fountain and bob and his friends showed up. he thought he could change things, take the blade from johnny, fix it.
instead, he'd ended up with the switchblade in his own side. had been wheezing, gasping for air.
dallas had looked as sick as he had when he'd found johnny in the lot, had made such a strange sound of pain when he took the knife out of ponyboy's side. his hand had been covered in blood, and he'd said, "close your eyes, man. just close 'em, okay?"
pony had choked, and had closed them. the pain he felt in his neck had been something else, then.
he thought he heard some kind of awful noise coming from dallas, but it could've been him, then.
then he was back in his bed, clawing at his throat, waking up soda.
viii.
the sunset from the roof of the house is always beautiful. it's his favorite view, as he lies against dallas' chest, their legs tangled up. he doesn't know how many they've wound up back here, his brothers down below, talking.
he doesn't hate darry anymore. they've had too many little conversations, had too many larger ones in all this time to hate him. there's too much time now that has passed for him to do anything but understand his brother. he knows that he doesn't know he and dallas are up here, and not a single loop has he ever been very curious about them.
he asks dallas, "did you watch this, before?"
"no," dallas says, voice laced with more curiosity than irritation, "didn't seem worth watching."
pony's hand bumps his, gives him his cigarette. dallas takes it, pulls him closer to him.
they fit like two puzzle pieces.
ix.
the very first day, before the first loop, he knew something was off when dallas had come to the house so early. ponyboy knew that he'd gotten out of jail the day before, and sometimes dallas wasn't always quite right after a stint in jail. the cut on his neck still stung, feeling the skin already scabbing when he'd tumbled out of bed, yawning, to find the hood in his doorway.
it hadn't been a normal day. not when dallas had coaxed him to go to buck's, not when pony had actually gone with him, against darry's wishes all because dallas had flashed him a look that ponyboy hadn't been able to say no to. that part of him that was so tired of having to obey the rules, that wanted to get out of darry's hold spoke to him.
it wasn't the beer, really, that he thinks was the turning point. it wasn't the best beer (at least the ones two-bit had were better), and ponyboy didn't have a whole lot. the lazy grin on dallas' face, the way he talked to him, cursing out shitty tennessee williams all helped. there were other things that helped him take him up the steps to dallas' room: moments between them where ponyboy had felt that maybe they weren't buddies but they were something more, something that could be uncomfortable, that could be strange.
he's not sure what exactly makes it feel good to have dallas' mouth on his, or what makes his skin feel so fucking electric when dallas touches him, or what makes him want this to happen so badly.
he does know, for sure, though that when dallas eases himself into him, when he can get over the feeling of being stretched open, of the first time he's ever, ever had sex, it's good. he knows that he wouldn't do this with anyone else he can think of, he knows that he wants to do this again and again.
dallas doesn't push him out like he did to a broad ponyboy had caught him with once. his nose finds it's way against his neck, and when they fall asleep, he thinks he can feel dallas' fingers cling closer to him, as if ponyboy will leave him.
he falls asleep before he can reassure him with: why would i leave?
then he wakes in his bed, and is confused at the date on the clock.
it's the same as before.
x.
the double always shows the same aimless beach movie. sometimes he goes with johnny and dallas like they promised, and they never even sit next to cherry valence. they usually eat popcorn, run into two-bit. he invites johnny inside, dallas invites himself. they sit in the kitchen, having food, talking to each other, and for a little while, it feels normal and like before. just with the addition that sometimes, dallas will drag him out back, and their bodies will find each other in the dark, just like that. sometimes, they'll sneak out to buck's, to go back to the bed there, dallas splayed on the bed beneath him, ponyboy on top, and do their damndest to fuck until they sleep or the day changes over to seperate them.
sometimes they'll just get drunk, or they'll find the weed that dallas discovered god knew how many loops back, and smoke it together. sometimes they'll talk about what they haven't done yet, sometimes they'll talk about what they have. sometimes pony will read to dallas until his eyes droop, sometimes dallas will tell him about the times he spent alone here, like the loop he had where he and sylvia had a fight in the street that ended up with dallas getting hit by a car or when he managed to goad steve into stealing bob's car from under his nose.
sometimes they talk about a way out. sometimes they simply lie there, nestled up in each other, waiting for the day to reset.
they don't know how this will end, or if it will.
they both know that they're not leaving without the other.
thanks so much for reading! i love any and all feedback.