The better he gets, the more Dallas materializes.

The first time he looks wary, not angry when he settles himself beside Ponyboy on the recliner. It's been hours since the incident in the bedroom, and Ponyboy had moved into the living room to try and get some sort of movement, to try and distance himself. The carpet was thankfully clean from the first time he vomited, and Darry and Soda were both home.

Ponyboy's hands shook as he drank from the bowl of soup, trying to stubbornly not acknowledge the fact that his dead friend (and it felt like a stretch in a way, and also not; they had never been buddies the way he and Johnny had aside from a moment or two, moments that Ponyboy clung to more than he wanted to admit) was sitting there beside him. Soda was in the kitchen making dinner for himself and Darry, and Darry was at the recliner, trying to be discreet about the fact he was watching Ponyboy like a hawk.

Not that he could blame him; being sick like this always seemed to invite bad trouble, or symptoms of something worse.

Ponyboy wishes, fervently, that he could tell him what was going on. Instead, he keeps it to himself as Dally seems to take stock of everything around him.

The house had changed in small ways, to Ponyboy at least: some of the lamps had been changed out, a few holes had been repaired. Photos of his parents were still evident — and now ones of Johnny and Dallas. It had been Soda's idea to cut out the photos from the newspaper and put them there when they couldn't get anything else. It still burned Pony up that Mrs. Cade hadn't even responded to them when they'd ask for such basic things.

"What did you expect, Pone?"

Dallas' voice, still so distorted, makes him almost jump out of his skin. He cuts his eyes toward Dally, who'd got a scowl on his face as fierce as before. "You should know that broad—" Soda swears in the back of the kitchen, the sound of the pots clattering mixing unpleasantly with the distortion of Dally's voice, "—didn't give a shit about him. Right until the end."

He's not wrong, Ponyboy knows. As much as his mind tried to work around that night in the hospital, he always remembered Mrs. Cade's dark eyes flashing, how Two-Bit had lashed out at her. The feeling in his stomach, the anger, the despair at her indifference had still existed.

Two years on, and it hadn't changed, either. He'd caught snatches of conversation while he was sick — Darry, Soda, Two-Bit and Steve had gone visiting their graves again while he'd been in bed, struggling with fever and such an altered sensation of reality. How it had only been them there, like they expected. The fact that they lived in town, still and never visited once burned them all good.

That doesn't mean that he has to acknowledge Dallas right now. The weight of everything on his shoulders was too much, head still spinning, trying to adjust to the fact that he could see a real ghost here, of a boy he'd known for most of his life.

Darry glances towards the kitchen, and Ponyboy takes the moment to give Dally a glare, as much as he can muster with how ill he feels. Dally glares right back, unconcerned with the situation.

Two years ago, Ponyboy might've been too wary to glare like this. Then again, two years ago, Dally would have been alive. It wouldn't have been like this, and was soon as Darry stands up to go check on Soda, he hisses out, "Can you quit it, Dal?"

Dallas looks like he's going to lash out at him — and then it looks as if he remembers what it did last time, and keeps his hand drawn to his side. They stay like that on the sofa, eyes cutting at each other, knowing that contact would send that feeling through them again.

Or, at least, Ponyboy assumes that Dallas feels something by his hesitance to have contact again.

It's a bit of a dance from there; Ponyboy moving through the house. Dallas following at the corner of his eye, at the edge of his vision. Watching, moving around Pony, always out of reach of each other, yet still there, still very much aware of the other. It makes him all the more hyper aware, being followed by Dallas' eyes as Ponyboy moves around the house, the only person who's aware that Dallas is there.

There's no worry in Dallas' face for Pony as he moves around, as he tries to get around his brothers, drink the soup, take the aspirin. There's nothing inquiring in his expression, only a mild observation of the things around him and an otherwise intent look towards Ponyboy whenever he could. He makes an occasional remark or two, and Ponyboy does his best to keep his mouth shut — which isn't too hard at the moment, with how out of sorts he feels physically, and mentally now.

When he finally stumbles to his shared room, when he finally shuts the door, puts his forehead on it, he can finally take a breath to steady himself. It feels like a cruel joke, to have gone to his grave weeks ago, mourning, wishing to speak again and to have it come true like this.

What was it? A Monkey's Paw. Or something out of an episode of the Twilight Zone, happening right here.

He turns his head around, looks at Dallas, who's leaning against the wall, expression as stormy as normal. His eyes are focused on Ponyboy, and when he talks, his voice is worse than before, "You have no idea what you did, huh."

"Did what, Dal?" His voice is tired, ragged. All those times lying awake at night, mourning, and Dallas is here and he doesn't even know what to say or how to say it. Even if he weren't so sick that his vision was dancing, he didn't exactly understand what he had to do now, how this had all happened.

Or if he was happy about it. Elated. Anything more than spooked.

Dallas doesn't press. His voice still makes Ponyboy shiver as he says, "You should get back to bed. You look about as good as I do."

Ponyboy thinks he laughs a little bit. He can't remember, with the way he hits the bed.

The dreams are odd this time: they come in black and white spurts on and off. Streets littered with garbage; apartments that were dirty; a woman with a cigarette between her lips, looking exhausted; the view of the fuzz, his eyes narrowed, a gun raised, the feeling of an explosion in his stomach, a sensation of falling.

Waking up, he feels better than before, and not entirely well. The images linger, and Dallas isn't there.

It hurts. It shouldn't.

Days pass by in relative quiet from there. Sleep becomes more restful, his head clears more fully.

One morning, as he's brushing his teeth, he catches Dallas at the corner of his eye, leaning against the wall. Relief washes through Ponyboy at the sight of him — and he never thought he'd be happy to see Dallas like this, translucent, scowling in his bathroom in the morning.

Dallas doesn't say anything, and Ponyboy doesn't either. Just allows a sharp toothed grin to show when Ponyboy finishes up and reaches for the grease for his hair.

After that, Dallas never fully appears again, only lingering at the edge of his vision on and off. Sometimes the light flows through his towheaded hair, sometimes Pony hears a whispered remark or two, and other times, the cold comes back. It's never as malevolent as it was before, never as heavy.

In all that time, though, Ponyboy thinks. He's good for that, after all. Dally being back, haunting his steps wasn't a way for either of them to live, not now, not ever. The comfort of seeing Dally again didn't outweigh the fact that something was wrong with Dallas being here, among the living. He hadn't wanted this; he'd gone down under the street lamp, and it felt wrong that some kids had pulled him right out of his grave.

A few days later, he's truly back on his feet, his good shoes on, and he's back to the pavement, back in school. There are missed assignments to catch up on — and more importantly, he has the school library for his use.

It isn't much; even the Soc's families didn't care to fund it as well as anything else. Coming here had been difficult once Johnny had died. Besides the lot, which Ponyboy had to come back to out of necessity rather than will, this was the place he and Johnny had hung out the most. They had come here to study, to avoid Socs during lunch, the place where Ponyboy had shown Johnny the patience their teachers never had for him.

Avoiding it had been easy enough. Doing assignments in class, taking a risk or two for the main library had been all worth it to avoid the place that he carried so many memories of Johnny.

There was a temptation to turn around. Go out to the public library where the memories weren't there, nipping at his heels. Go there and look for what he needed, what he had to find.

Instead, he crosses the threshold for the first time in over a year and begins to look for the answer on how to contain a ghost. He dips his fingers into the pockets of the jacket he wears, fingers brushing against the still unsmoked pack of Kools as he walks the aisles, trying not to call too much attention to himself.

thanks for reading! really love any and all feedback from you guys with this.