After initiations have never quite been like this. Dallas has seen everyone else in the pack initiated, and none of them have had this happen before and probably won't see this after. He doesn't know exactly what to feel when he looks down at Ponyboy, at his wide brown eyes, expression clearly hopeful, pleased that he's been initiated.

Even when Sal had been angry, demanding, Dallas had known that if it came down to it, Ponyboy would have won. He had itched for it actually in that moment, to see Sal taken down, to have everyone witness an omega put Sal back in his place.

Ed had done it, and it wasn't half as satisfying as he had wanted: action over quick, no real blood drawn. There's a thought that later, he'd find Sal's car, do some damage he wouldn't forget.

Now, though, Dallas has to look at Ponyboy. He's the last, out of everyone in the pack to go up. If Johnny were here, he'd be last given he was the last one initiated before Ponyboy. He looks down at him, at the way his blonde hair seems to mix warmly with the bonfire glow, the way his jacket still looks too big, yet perfectly settled on Ponyboy's shoulders. His hand raises, and settles on Ponyboy's neck, mingling their scents together, Dallas purposely taking his time as he does it.

The law, he didn't care about. Most people, he didn't care about. Ponyboy was his pack though — in name and ritual now and that's what he cared about the most. This was actually serious, actually binding, and now things are cemented even more.

He looks back up at Ponyboy's face — still younger than him, but different now, a little sharper, a little more his own. "Knew you were a greaser, kid."

He's well aware that of anyone, Ponyboy was different, would remain different from them. That he might even leave Tulsa behind. But tonight, that doesn't matter. Tonight, he's a greaser, a real one.

Dallas pulls his hand away from Ponyboy, and joins the rest of the pack, coming to bump shoulders with Two-Bit. Steve still seems like he wants to get Soda's attention, glancing over to him and Darry. Not that it'll work; Soda might not hold grudges for long at all, but tonight he certainly was set on it as he pats Darry's shoulder.

For his part, Darry seems to be holding up okay, even though his head dips to exchange some quiet words with Soda as the other packs come to descend on Ponyboy. There's a steady stream, mostly of alphas, scenting Ponyboy. Some of them are quick, easy. Others linger, or a few descend on him at once to scent him. More than a few seem to want to linger than they should, taking a longer time to touch Ponyboy, some hands sneaking around the back of Ponyboy's neck in a way that makes Dallas' hackles raise.

None of it is helped by some of the snatches of conversation that he hears: Got a nice scent, huh? — Really looks like a Curtis omega — Really scents like one you mean — Think he's gonna stay unclaimed the whole night?

The last part is said by one of the loners about and Dallas knows that all that was said and more about Soda. He even joked about it, but the intent is different, the way they look at Ponyboy feels different, makes his skin itch and instincts annoyed.

Two-Bit is saying something, and when Dallas doesn't respond, Two-Bit nudges him. "Dal, c'mon. Ed's ready."

"Yeah, yeah," Dallas follows Two-Bit and the rest of the pack to the tables set up in the back. They're the same tables they've always used, old and scrounged up from various parts of the neighborhood. The food laid out is half sugary junk food has no interest in and the other half actually cooked food ranging from burgers and fries people bought to some food made by the older guys.

Ponyboy picks first, Dallas unsurprised when he goes for a bottle of Coke and some chocolate Ding Dongs before he gets some chicken and fries. He also gets the most important spot, a makeshift nest close to the bonfire. Alphas don't generally require a nest to sit in, but Ponyboy as an omega, Dallas guesses Ed thought a nest would be better. It's made up of various older blankets, a quilt someone must've found, and some old pillows.

"Think Sal's gonna keep out all winter?" He asks Two-Bit as they go down the line after Darry and Soda.

It's Steve who answers, grabbing a beer, "Sal's a sniffer, tried when Soda was up. You bet he'll try to be around."

"He's got that red Ford, right?" Normally, Dallas doesn't care much about cars or Steve but Steve knows every car in the county at this point.

"The '57 Fairlane, why?" Steve glances at Soda who's joined Ponyboy in the nest, Darry awkwardly on the outside probably badgering them to eat vegetables.

Dal doesn't answer, grabbing a chicken breast. He doesn't grab a beer, opting for reaching into his back pocket for the half bottle of whisky he'd gotten from Two-Bit earlier, and comes to sit on the opposite side of Darry, right next to Ponyboy. He can see Ponyboy's already eaten two of the Ding Dongs, and when he notices Dallas, he grins at him, a bit of chocolate at the corner of his mouth.

Dallas snickers at him, fangs sinking into the chicken. It's crispy, tender, and he wonders who made it as everyone begins to gather at the bonfire. Usually, this is the least interesting bit of the initiation night, where whoever got in bragged about what they'd done. It's mandatory to talk about it; the air is different tonight given most of the assembled have only known what was going on through newspapers, through gossip. They're all itching to hear about the stabbing, about running away right from the horse's mouth in a way that's obvious to Dallas as they gather round. More than a few seem eager to get into Ponyboy's favor, too: handing him beers, some Ding Dongs, and other sweets.

Pony seems not to know what it's about when accepting them; Dallas glares at a dark haired Brumly Boy who retracts an offer of beer. Dallas turns back to his food, Two-Bit coming to sit beside him, tipping his can to Dallas' bottle of whisky. Ed is the one who's voice carries over as Dallas takes a swing of the cheap beer, "Ponyboy, you have all the time you need to tell us about what you've done. This is your time, your night."

Memories of his own initiation floats up: how he had been fifteen, initiated along with Two-Bit and Steve, how it'd been more about bragging to other alphas. Now, he can see that Ponyboy hadn't considered this, having to talk about it, his fingers fiddling with the rim of his drink, eyes wide.

Two-Bit nudges him; Dallas nudges back, huffing out in a low voice, "C'mon, kid." He knows Ponyboy can hear him over the crackle of the fire and the alphas egging him on. Ponyboy swallows, and he abandons his coke to fumble with the tab of beer.

"Let him get some hair on his chest," Steve pipes up from the other side; Dallas can see he's the furthest out, denied of getting close to Soda by the buffer of Darry's body. Darry, who can't tell Ponyboy that he's not allowed to drink, Ponyboy looking a little disgusted by the taste at first. Soda says something and Ponyboy fights the grimace to take a long, sustained pull of beer.

"Yeah, kid!" Dallas joins in, Two-Bit whistling as Ponyboy drinks and drinks. At this point in his initiation, Johnny had choked a bit, gagged on it. Ponyboy winces, and manages to finish off the entire can of beer, coughing and spluttering as he wipes at his face, swearing. A few alphas surge forward; Dallas beats them, handing Ponyboy his whiskey bottle, the amber liquid bright in the light, with a smirk. "It'll taste better than that shit."

"Is it?" Ponyboy sounds skeptical and a round of laughter races through everyone. Darry clearly disapproves enough to make a sound — which makes Ponyboy reach over and grasp the whisky. He uncorks it, eyes watering and there's a whistle of encouragement from someone else and Dallas cocks his eyebrows challengingly.

With another small grimace, Ponyboy takes a small sip and then tips his head back to take a longer pull of the whisky. That makes him gag for a long second before spitting a bit of it out as he pulls it away, shaking his head, coughing and rubbing at his chest with his hand at the burn he's surely feeling.

"Like the hair, kid?"

"Gagging just like an omega, huh?"

A spate of laughter and crowing comes up at that, and Dallas can feel a hot streak of irritation in him as there's a few whistles to go along with it. Ponyboy's eartips go a bit red, glaring in the direction of the voice, Ed cutting in with, "Alright, that's enough from the peanut gallery!" He sits on a rock that's been there forever, plate in hand, tipping his own beer to Ponyboy. "Go on, Ponyboy. Tell us about that night, about what you did."

"I," Ponyboy clears his throat, plays with the bottle a bit in his fingers. He looks up through his eyelashes, his profile blazingly bright, the other half cast in shadow from where Dallas is sitting. He looks out at the sea of greasers and for a moment, Dallas thinks he might fuck up again. Ponyboy seems to find his voice, though, "We weren't out there looking for a fight. They didn't just attack us cause we were there." His fingers play at the wrapper on the bottle, voice getting a little stronger, "We — Johnny and me — were at the moviehouse, earlier. With Dallas," Ponyboy turns his head toward him, expression clearly not blaming, just asking him to join in, "We just went to see a movie, right, Dal?"

He nods in confirmation, deliberately lifting his mouth up in a snarl with the memory, "Sure did. Saw these two Soc broads — that redhead, Cherry and her friend."

"Marcia," Two-Bit adds in, shifting, giving a wink, "I showed up a little after the show started."

"They ain't wanna sit next to Dal," Ponyboy continues, "He got mad, went and had to cool off and their guys got mad at me, Johnny, and Two." Dallas knows that Ponyboy is editing in the moment, not wanting to mention he'd gone to slash Tim's tires. Something that Tim knows, eyes darting to Dallas and Dallas smirking at him, teeth sinking into the bone of the chicken, cracking at it to get to the marrow. "We tried to walk 'em home —" there's a hoot in the crowd "— they tried to pick a fight with us. Two-Bit even gave me a bottle, took out his knife. We ain't fight cause the girls didn't want to." That part, Dallas remembered well enough from Two-Bit telling him about it, before the cops had pulled him in. "We slept at the lot, and Johnny ain't want to go home so we stayed out longer." His finger rubs at the whiskey wrapper more. "Johnny... he wanted me to go home, but I ain't wanna leave him alone after. We were just minding our business that night. That's when they caught up with us, at the park. It was so cold, we could see our breath out there, and all of 'em were in greaser territory, drunk so bad we could smell it five paces off."

There's a twist of anger in Dallas' gut there, at the mention of it, as Ponyboy goes on, "We ain't wanna fight, but we didn't have a choice. It was five of them, two of us, and they're the ones who threw their liquor on us first." There's a hiss, some jostling and anger. "We told them it wasn't their territory — they called us white trash with long hair." The anger gets bigger then, and even Dal understands it then. "So — I called em white trash with Mustangs and madras and I spat on 'em."

A murmur of admiration goes up, a few low whistles joining in. This wasn't something Dallas had heard before, and he knows Ponyboy wouldn't lie about this. Soda seems a bit surprised by this too, and even Darry looks impressed by it. Ponyboy takes another swig of the whisky, before pressing on, voice wavering, "They chased us. Johnny got — one of the socs kicked him down, the rest ganged up on me. Kept pushing me down into the fountain over and over again—" Dallas isn't sure if the rest of them can see the hesitation, the flicker of fear on his face. "It wasn't me who stabbed Bob — it was Johnny."

"How many times was it?" It's Sylvia who speaks up, from near the back. "Heard it was three—"

"It was five!" Someone else insists.

"I don't know," Ponyboy shakes his head, not pulling away from their gazes, looking right at Sylvia. "He was just dead when I came up. Blood all over the ground, and Johnny and I just went to Buck's, to find Dallas." He turns then to look at Dallas, who knew his time was coming. He didn't think he'd like being looked at the way he is now, with admiration, pride on Ponyboy's face. "I hadn't thought about going to him, but Johnny did. Dallas told us we did good, gave us a gun, some money, told us where to go. And didn't tell no one where we went."

"Told the fuzz they was in Texas," Dallas boasts, a feat more than one of them wouldn't ever be able to do. "They tried all the little tricks, even convinced my pack." He nudges Two-Bit, who nods. "He was gonna go to Texas to look for 'em."

"Socs ain't take it lying down, neither," Two-Bit adds his own cents, as usual. "They were hitting on all of us — Curly got in the cooler cause of them. Two of 'em tried to get me, and our pack alpha helped me out." Darry, who normally doesn't even join in, nods with that. "They were gunning hard for them."

More than a few can attest to that; Dallas can see a few Brumly Boys nodding, and one of Tim's guys looks like he could spit nails. Dallas can vaguely remember coming back from Jay Mountain, and that hood was involved in something. Ponyboy takes the reins again, "We hid out at Jay Mountain. Cut our hair, dyed it, cause Johnny insisted on it." He tugs ruefully at his still platinum blonde hair that's got a few roots showing out, "He knew the fuzz would be looking for us, didn't want us to match the description. No one knew we were there 'cept Dallas and when he came up, we were gonna stay another week. Til the church started burning down." His voice gets a little quiet then. "That fire was gonna be the end but there were kids in there. Dallas told us to stay in the car, didn't want us to get caught, but I— I knew I had to go, get to 'em as fast as I could. I got there first, couldn't get in — then Johnny was there. He's the one who got a rock, threw it so we could climb into the church. The kids' teacher couldn't get inside, so it was just us, getting them kids out. One of them even bit me," he cracks a half smile that seems a little wobbly, but the audience around them just doesn't see it. They don't see how vulnerable he is, they don't know what it was like up there.

Dallas remembers it. He remembers the thought seizing him for one awful moment that he was going to lose Ponyboy and Johnny, not to the fuzz or to socs but to something worse. Then, that he didn't want them in there, dying for some snot nosed pups they didn't know. He remembers the smoke — how acrid it was, the way it mixed with the old wood, his senses going insane from the overload — the yelling and how for a moment, he thought Ponyboy was going to slip out of his grip, and how his arm had shot out, grasped him by the scruff, had used every ounce of strength to keep Ponyboy from plunging further in.

He can hear Ponyboy describe being rescued, and Dallas? He's not there, not at the bonfire. He's in the moment on Jay Mountain, seeing Ponyboy trying to stagger to his feet despite everything. Thinking that he shouldn't be up on his feet, that he shouldn't be able to go forward, admiring in a way even if he was furious. The horrible terror of seeing the flames licking at Ponyboy's arm and shoulder, of the thought he couldn't lose him, and winding his arm back, trying to get the fire off his front and back — and then watching Ponyboy collapse to the ground.

The thought that he had accidentally killed Ponyboy had been terrifying. He had leaned down, gone right to his knees, frantic, patting out the fire, shaking Ponyboy until he heard him moan and cough. The relief he felt, turning to go and get Johnny out, able to hear him yelling for help.

His scars seem to throb in response. The ones he hasn't looked at much in the past few weeks, but he knows with sudden clarity, that Ponyboy must have scars on his shoulders, too. That they have to share them.

Dallas moves, runs the inside of his scarred wrist against his knee. Now that he's out of the memory, he notices the awed quiet that has settled on everyone, Ponyboy's voice floating above them, "The adults ain't believe me when I said we were hoods. Even when we got back, they didn't believe me. Maybe cause they ain't think we got rules, think we ain't care about others. Don't think they understand we ain't like socs, that we ain't the type to just tear into each other for kicks." Ponyboy fidgets with his bottle more, and his eyes seem to glow in the firelight in a way that casts him differently than he had been in Jay Mountain. He doesn't seem like that kid at all, in front of the fire, the expression on his face serious, yet hopeful.

There's something in his face that's older than his fourteen years, that makes Dallas more drawn into him than what he's felt before. Something in his face that is so much more vibrant, more engaging, that makes Dallas want to pull him away from the gawking, entranced audience as Ponyboy goes on to talk about the rumble, how he hadn't felt well, but he knew they had to. How Ponyboy describes the rumble in a way that seems like something out of the movie, the way the socs had approached, the way the rain had fallen on them, the way he describes Dallas showing up from the hospital.

There are cheers, claps, some greasers recognizing themselves. And in their faces, more than admiration shows up. There is hunger, want and Dallas recognizes it not only on their faces, but in him, too. Maybe not from the same place, maybe not in the same way, but as he listens to Ponyboy, he understands. There is something in Ponyboy's words, in the way his eyes look at everyone, in the way he seems to care that seems to come out more and more as the night goes on.

There's silence again as Ponyboy runs his fingers on the almost empty bottle, looking over everyone's faces. "We beat those socs, out there. As a pack, all of us." He looks over everyone, eyes serious, earnest. "Wasn't just me or Dallas or Johnny. We did, as greasers." There seems to be something in the wind, the way it picks up, the way the firelight catches on Ponyboy's hair. "One of them — one of the socs told me he'd never do that for anyone, that he would've let those pups die. No greaser would say that, would believe that. Socs... they wouldn't care about their buddy in the fire, wouldn't care that he got burned." Someone gives out a whistle of agreement. "They wouldn't care that his parents ain't visit him, they would've just let him rot." For a moment, his voice breaks off and something in his face changes, solidifies and he shakes his head. "It ain't fair that we're here, doing all this and Johnny isn't here. He was with me the whole time, he saved me — we should be with him too, right now."

Dallas will never say out loud that he doesn't quite agree with his words. That this is Ponyboy's moment, his initiation, Johnny already had his. He itches to yank him over, tell him to enjoy this moment in the sun, while another part of him, that had dragged Ponyboy up from the mud, made sure he could speak and had dragged him to the car to see Johnny in the hospital, the part of him that knew Johnny couldn't pass without Ponyboy being there, agrees. That part of him agrees with the ensuing calls, the cheers of agreement.

And that's the part of him that watches Ponyboy get up from the blankets, swaying a little from the drinks. He's the first one to stand up, seconds after Ponyboy says, "We should go. Take this to him, too. Let him see he's still pack, too."

And like a sea, everyone rises up too, calling out, howling, whistling, as an answer.