The yard looks mostly untouched from the party from the night before, Ponyboy finds. He can still feel his hand curling around the strip of shirt as he makes his way up the steps, seeing a few beer bottles still on the ground, and down the street, he can see that Two-Bit's lawn still is need of a bit of a clean up.

He keeps a small smile to himself as he walks up the steps to his house, opening the door carefully as he walks back inside. There's the smell of bacon frying, and Ponyboy isn't surprised to see Darry poking his head out, looking at him from the kitchen, expression a little tight for a moment.

In all the commotion last night, they'd lost sight of each other and now Ponyboy was home hours later. Darry's clearly cleaned up from the night before, and the house doesn't seem to have had anyone come in. Soda's gone, too — he probably went into work as soon as he could. For a moment, Ponyboy thinks that Darry might get on him about being out so late, his face pinching, looking over Ponyboy.

He wonders what he sees, who he sees: the blonde hair a mess, reeking of all the packs, of Dallas, of the outside. The way his jacket looks on him, the bandage on his hand, the way his jeans look with grass stains. He wonders if Darry really still sees him as a pup despite everything the night before.

"You gonna shower?" Darry's tone isn't as harsh as it could be, appraising Ponyboy.

"No," Ponyboy grins at him, thumb rubbing against his bandaged palm. "You going to work today?"

"Yeah, got half an hour," Darry seems to want to say more, and then turns away. "Don't go out too far, today. Cops are still out on the street." Ponyboy nods, moving to the hallway, down to his room. "Remember what the lawyer said about keeping your nose clean."

"I know!" Ponyboy shuts the door behind him, taking a seat on the bed, grateful that Soda isn't there. His head is still spinning with the night before, with everything that had happened. From the initiation to the party, to Dallas. The way he had touched him, the way his hand had felt on his neck, his lips on his and how Ponyboy had felt so... so startled and happy and curious and wanting...

All of it was so much, so big and he doesn't know what to do.

Dallas had let him go home without much fanfare, and in all that, Ponyboy hadn't known what else to do, except to go home. And now he had all the time to dwell on it as he lay on the bed, breathing, looking at the ceiling, trying to sort through his memories, his feelings — mental and physical. Kissing Dallas hadn't just been something retained in the mind; his body had reacted too, reaching out for him, feeling an odd sort of warmth in him, a need he hadn't had before.

What did it mean? Where did they all go from here?

His teeth sink into his lip — still tasting a bit of Dallas, a bit of whiskey and water there — hand flexing where Ed had cut his palm in the firelight. He was a greaser now, officially. Everyone knew that this made him, well. If he wanted to be with someone, if he wanted to date, go steady, he could. He hadn't even been thinking of it most of the night, despite the touches, the scenting the looks.

Then it had all just. Happened.

Running off with Dallas, away from the cops. The trainyard, the urge to kiss Dallas back, over and over again.

It had felt right. More than right, and confusing too now that he was home. Since when had he wanted to kiss Dallas? Since when had he gotten that comfortable, since when had Ponyboy cared about Dallas the way Cherry Valance or Sylvia did?

Even thinking about them doesn't feel quite right, though. Sylvia, who cheated on him all the time. Cherry who seemed to not even care about him anymore, who seemed to talk about Dallas wistfully. The way they wanted him — both alpha girls, one greaser and one soc — wasn't really right.

It doesn't match the way he thinks about the kiss, how he had thought that Dallas' lips on his, his fangs on his lips, the feeling of his tongue in his mouth, they all feel different. He can feel that heat creep up his neck, can feel something stir in him that isn't the same thing, yet at the same time...

When had he wanted this? When had he become comfortable with the idea of kissing Dallas? Of wanting more?

Because he does want more, his eyes moving to the window, able to see Steve driving by in his car towards the DX. He can see Evie in the car with him, and he thinks not of them but him and Dallas in a car together, driving somewhere. Thinks of what it would be like to kiss him in a tuff car, of what his hands might feel like on his waist, what his teeth might feel like along his neck and the flush on his neck, that feeling of need in him gets stronger.

There's an urge in his teeth that he doesn't know what to do with. To sink them into Dallas' neck, and it makes his whole body feel electric all at once, that he could — and just, simply. Confusion.

He hadn't been consciously thinking about Dallas before like this. Hadn't wanted him until he'd been kissed and that...

Wasn't it out of nowhere?

Ponyboy reaches up to run his hands through his hair, thinking again of Dallas at the bonfire. How he'd looked with a mouth full of sharp fangs, the way he'd told him he'd always belonged. Thinking about how he'd wanted to draw him, wanted to capture him on paper.

He turns on his bed, fingers seeking out his sketchbook. It's one of the most expensive things he'd ever gotten — and he'd actually paid for it. He flips it open, fingers running over the pages. The first few aren't exactly what Ponyboy likes to see. It's from when he first got it, soon after his parent's deaths. Most of the drawings are dark, detailed drawings. Some words still pop up from the page for him that he'd had: bodies twisted — burned — unrecognizable. Words from the cop.

Further in, there are more drawings from the spring and summer. Ponyboy can see the colors start to seep in: bits of sunsets and sunrises, Soda's smile, Darry's furrowed brow. Sometimes there are poems, words scrawled into pages, and he can recognize Dallas' hunched shoulders in the corner of one page, his snarl on another. More and more pages flow: him trying to get down the anger on Dallas' face, the sometimes pensive look there, a whole page for Dallas' eyebrows in various expressions. They're all rushed, attempts to get Dallas down in a few lines.

Then, he's fleeting again. Ponyboy thinks back to Dallas getting in jail, and how the drawings go back to Soda, go back to Johnny's big eyes, Steve and Soda curling into each other. There are still dark scribbles of nightmares, and as soon as he goes to more recent drawings, it's not hard to notice that every single one of them is of Dallas, somehow: his fingers holding a cigarette; his eyebrows working together; a full page of sketches of his snarling, expressive mouth; and all the recent failed attempts to get Dallas down more and more.

Even if he hadn't known it consciously, he had been drawn to him more and more. Ponyboy can see it in front of him, in the pages and pages of Dallas dominating the sketchbook, in the ones he'd done weeks before.

He reaches over, finds the pencil he's been keeping for the past month, and thinks about Dallas. Thinks about him in the bonfire, the black eye half healed, the tilt of his mouth, the way he felt being told he was a greaser. He lets his hand and mind go, thinking about the comfortable way he felt around him, about how it had become easier and easier to be around Dallas, to trust him and to be with him.

He thinks about the way it felt to wake up with him that morning, his scent mingling with Pony's the way his chest had felt against Ponyboy's back. The way his arms felt around his waist, his legs tangled up with him. The way it felt to kiss him, the way Dallas had seemed confident, the way Ponyboy had felt kissing him back, needing it more and more. Wanting something more that he couldn't quite put his finger on, knowing what bodies looked like together in the bonfire, but not knowing exactly how to achieve that himself.

He concentrates on getting Dallas down on the page — the sharpness of his teeth, the way his eyebrows looked, the lines of his back, the way his hands were — and when he finishes, over an hour later, he thinks that it's good. That he really does want Dallas, want more even if not everything felt well defined now, even if he wasn't sure of the extent of this.

Ponyboy looks at the drawing, can feel his ears get a little pink, but he knows now. And at least knowing that made things easier for him, he could figure out what to do.

That at least, in the moment was easy enough: to take a shower, and try to find Dallas.

The shower in and of itself is easy, getting up from the bed with a sigh. He knows he reeks of the greasers and probably mostly Dallas. Which makes him feel reluctant on a level as he grabs towels and goes to the shower.

He shuts the door and takes time to get undressed, frowning at the beer stains and grass stains on his clothes. The jeans get thrown in a corner, and when he looks at his reflection, Ponyboy knows he isn't older than he was yesterday; yet he feels like it as he looks at himself, some indescribable change rendered to him now that the initiation is over. Some invisible threshold has been crossed, forever, that he can't return to.

Maybe it already had happened at the fountain, at Windrixville the way Ed implied.

In the more human, normal sense though, he focuses on the way his hair is messed up. Normally it would annoy him, fingers going up to run through his hair.

When his fingers touch his hair, though, he thinks of what it felt like to have so many greasers touching him. All those scents, all those grasping hands. Of Dallas' hand in his hair, the way he tugged it like he had in the church, the way it felt so easy there. How much he liked it when Dallas had gripped him, pulling him closer both times and Ponyboy can feel that flush creep up his neck, can feel something tugging at him near his midsection that feels...

Familiar yet foreign. A feeling he's never actively explored before.

He's not totally innocent. Greasers weren't exactly like socs when it came to sex: it was more out in the open. Ponyboy could count on his hands twice over the times he'd heard things or walked into things or a scent had tipped him off as to what was going on. He's been there, listening to Soda or Two or Dallas talking dirty, even joined in a time or two with the few things he'd heard. More than that, Ponyboy had eavesdropped on more explicit bull sessions before, with Soda and Two-Bit and Dallas. He thinks of them now: the way Soda talked about the first time he fucked an alpha, the way he'd described how he liked it; the way that Two-Bit would snicker about fucking into a girl during a rut, the way Dallas' voice dragged at the bottom of his throat as he bragged about having a knot, even outside of a rut.

And that flows to another memory: the time Ponyboy had been in Buck's, before. He'd snuck up with Two-Bit once, and he'd wandered away from Two-Bit. It had been weeks after he had turned fourteen and he had gotten to Dal's room by accident. The door had been cracked open, and Ponyboy had peeked through the door. Sylvia had been on the bed, her legs pushed up almost to her chest. Hands had gripped her thighs, she was swearing and between her legs was Dallas.

Even though Ponyboy had presented by then, he hadn't registered their mingled scents, the smell of sex. But he understood for a moment what was happening, watching Sylvia's fingers grip Dallas' hair, watching her rock into his mouth.

He had been frozen, not understanding, not sure of what to do or say — and he hadn't known to move until Dallas had lifted his head, his eyes landing on Ponyboy for what felt like a minute but had really been a split second before Ponyboy had turned away. He had seen him, looked right at him, and Ponyboy had felt flushed, confused, then. Dallas hadn't ever said anything about it besides ribbing him for knowing what all went on.

He's rarely thought back to it, yet each time it's always had that flushed, confused need to it. It holds him now with the same feeling, recalling the memory.

Except its a little different now as he turns on the shower, stepping into the hot spray. The water cascades down his skin, and the way he recalls the memory makes his body feel different than before.

He's heard things in the bull circles at night. About how alphas felt arousal in their cocks, the concentration there. Soda... Ponyboy has rarely listened to Soda, mostly because before he presented, he thought he'd be an alpha and even then, Soda was still his brother. Some things weren't for his ear.

So it's strange that now, the more he thinks about it — Sylvia's thighs in the air, the way Dallas had looked at him, the way he saw that there was something wet on his mouth, the way Dallas had locked eyes with him for one moment — his body reacts differently. He can feel that his cock certainly is reacting, can feel an erection start but his mind isn't there. That's not where most of what he knows his arousal is centered.

Ponyboy flushes, the memory sinking into him. Starting to scent something new in the shower, feeling something hot and wet that wasn't water start to slip down his thigh.

Slick. He's smelling slick. He can tell by the scent, by the way it feels thicker when he reaches his hand between his legs. The last time he scented this was the day he presented, waking up to a mess of it in his bed and the shock that he wasn't an alpha. He would never be.

Back then, he'd thrown away the sheets, had tried to ignore it. Hadn't wanted to acknowledge his dynamic, had felt bitter and sad that his father wasn't there to talk to him about it, to reassure him. Soda had congratulated him mutely, and Ponyboy had done his best to bury it.

He'd read harlequins, remembered bull sessions. How it had always felt over the top and funny about omegas having slick, about the need to be filled, to touch oneself to achieve it even if no one else was around. Ponyboy hadn't understood it then, barely understood it now even with the evidence on his fingers, even with the cresting need in him to chase after the sensation building in him. There's hesitance, embarrassment — most omegas in those books seemed ridiculous, strange. No one had ever talked to him directly about any of this.

Ponyboy bites his lip, remembering passages in the books about passion, thinking about things he'd glanced at in skin mags. His face goes red, halfway with shame, and halfway with... with need. With wanting to discover it.

His thoughts go back to Dallas again. Go back to kissing him. Go back to how he looked in the fire, goes back to the bedroom. Tentatively, Ponyboy slips a finger between his ass, searching for his hole, from where the slick was coming from. It feels strange to press there, and he hesitates before a roiling sense of real want pulses through him. The need to have Dallas back, to be Sylvia on the bed, Dallas above him.

His finger pushes, and Ponyboy isn't expecting how tight he actually is. For a moment, he thinks to draw back, stop, but the rest of his body can't stand it. He shuts his eyes, his finger pushes forward and he thinks of himself as Sylvia, groaning as the first wave of strangely nice sensations work their way through him.

Thinks of what it might feel like to be beneath Dallas, of what his mouth might feel like. What is might be like to have Dallas looking at him that intensely, what it might feel like to have Dallas push his legs up, to have Dallas sliding between his thighs and—

He almost slips and falls in the shower as the orgasm hits him, eyes squeezing shut, mouth open wordlessly as the pleasure crests. He doesn't have words to describe what he's feeling, the arc of intense, new sensations in his body, the mix of slick and cum in the shower. Desperately, he tries to get purchase, grasping onto the barely able soap dish wedged into the wall as his legs stop shaking.

Only he feels different, blinking into the hot water of the shower when it's over. He pulls his finger out, raises his hand to see the slick there and glances downward. Whatever cum that came from his cock is down the drain at this point and Ponyboy swallows thickly with the awareness of it all.

There's a thought to try again; then he remembers how Darry might react to the use of hot water like this.

...and then, hell. Darry could stand for him to be in the shower a little longer, just this once. He's sure that both of his brothers have done this in here, themselves at his age.

He was just a little late to it is all.

Ponyboy just makes the water a little cooler and then thinks of himself in Sylvia's place again. Thinks and thinks and thinks, going from one finger to two, working himself furiously, until he's able to feel that cresting euphoric high again.

Eventually, he's tired. He turns the water hot, cleans himself and stumbles his way to his room wondering just what on earth Dallas had unlocked in him. Not even the girl in the yellow dress — who Ponyboy had dared to think a time or two was pretty, who he maybe wanted to kiss — had gotten to him like this. Thinking about her now — the pretty yellow dress he used to look for, the way he had felt ashamed to even talk to her as fleeting as his interest in her had been — as he pulled on his fresh clothes, she wasn't as luminous as she had been in his memory before, the yellow not as bright as he used to think of it. Her gasp of distaste at the switchblade, her judgemental eyes are too much like Cherry's avoiding glance in the hallway, too much like a soc who didn't look at him the way Dallas had looked at him.

He folds up Dallas' jacket, tucks it under his head like a pillow, turning his head and thinking not about himself as Sylvia, but simply of a warm day. Thinking of what it would be like to take out a switchblade and instead of Dallas gasping like that girl had, he'd grin.

It's easy to sleep after that.