Title: Back for You

Author(ess): Berserker Nightwitch

Summary: Dally and Johnny are dead right? Then how is Dally coming through the front door? And who is this person who looks like Johnny?

Posted: April 7, 2004

Chapter Title: Changing Similarities

Thank Yous:

Bandit-Gurl42 – No sweat. Even short reviews are acceptable. I hope you had fun wherever you had to go.

Tensleep – I'm glad you liked the pictures, and in case I haven't said it enough: I love A Different View. Note to other readers: READ THAT STORY!!!!! Back to the Thank yous: I never actually planned for this to be sad/ironic. Oh well. At least now I know its genre, right? ^^

movielvr – I hope this was fast enough for you. I was a little upset that a week after posting the first chapter with Johnny really back I had still only gotten about five reviews. I went through a small bit of depression, but I think I'm better. *shrugs*

Flour Chief – As I told you a few days ago when we were watching the movie, I had only one chapter written out, but I've forgotten some of the more important details. Have fun singing. Mistress of the Darkness – I'm glad you liked your cookie. You're the second person to have said anything about it. Tensleep was the other one. The reason I added that was that I've read a lot of Outsiders fics that leave that part hanging. They'll give these off-the-wall reasons for Johnny and Dally to come back, but somehow everyone just accepts that the Curtis parents aren't. …I really hope that that's what you were talking about when you said you agreed with Soda… if not, then I feel very, very stupid….

On to the story…

~~

"Soda! Johnny! Dally!" At Darry's yell, all three boys sat up quickly. Two promptly clutched their foreheads and fell back onto their beds. Even after a week they still weren't fully used to the bunkbeds. Every morning that Darry had to yell to wake them up, they spent the day sporting a purple mark on their foreheads.

"Why don't you come in here and wake us up?" Dally grumbled as he fell off of his bed. There was a loud crash followed by a string of muffled curses as Dally struggled to disentangle himself from his sheets while hanging upside down from the top bunk. Johnny fought valiantly to keep from laughing, but in the end, he failed. Dally threw him a glare that lost most of its power, seeing as how the one doing the glaring was hanging upside down in his underwear with the blood rushing to his head.

"Let me help," Johnny offered, grabbing Dally at his armpits and pulling him into what could have been a sitting position, had his feet been on the ground instead of wrapped in sheets. While Johnny held him up, Dally unwrapped the sheets from his legs and struggled to stand upright. Johnny let go when he had finally succeeded. When they had pulled on decent clothes they headed into the kitchen.

Soda and Pony were already eating when they arrived. Soda looked up and grinned when they walked in. "Morning. What took you two so long?"

"Unlike you," Dally answered, "we actually wear clothes, and had to put them on."

"What do you mean? I'm wearing clothes!" The other four occupants of the room all looked at Soda in various stages of disbelief and humor. "What?" Soda looked down at himself to see what they found so strange.

"Hate to break it to you Little Man, but underwear does not count as clothes. And what was the banging I heard?" Darry looked to the two newcomers as he said the last part.

"That was us hitting our heads on the ceiling and the top bunk. Again," Dally responded around a mouthful of cake.

"Followed by Dally falling off the bed and getting so tangled up in his own sheets that he just hung there until I helped him get out." The others watched in amusement as Dally's face turned bright red. Someone had finally succeeded in embarrassing Dallas Winston.

"As amusing as this story promises to be," Darry cut in, "Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally have school in half an hour. Soda, you have work in twenty minutes. I suggest all four of you start getting ready. You can give Steve and Two-Bit heart attacks when they get here that way."

~

"So how's it feel to finally be going back to school, Johnnycake?" Two-Bit asked as they entered the school building. Johnny had stayed at the house for the past week in order to let the others inform the school that he was still alive. Few people believed them, but the principle had believed them enough to get Johnny a new schedule.

"It's a little weird. At least this is the beginning of a new semester, so everyone's changing classes. Or at least a lot of people are."

"That's the reason Darry let you wait a week. Well, that and the fact that he didn't have to clean house that entire week."

"Yeah! After the first day I was so bored I did it just to have something to do."

"Did we tell you Two-Bit? He even scrubbed the shower curtain clean! I had almost forgotten we had bought it 'cause it was blue." [1]

"Um…"

"If Two-Bit's speechless, it's time to go. Where's your first class Johnnycake?"

"In the three hundreds."

"Mine too. I'll walk with you. We can freak everyone out. The walking dead, walking together. We'll really mess with their minds!"

"Okay, Dal. Bye Pony, bye Two-Bit."

~

Johnny ended up in the same fourth period as Ponyboy, and because both of their last names began in C, they sat almost next to each other. Two football players sat between them, and another sat behind Ponyboy. Within ten minutes, it was obvious to Johnny why Ponyboy wasn't overly happy to see the three football players walk into the classroom. He could hear them picking on Ponyboy from where he sat, and struggled to keep calm.

Halfway through the class, the teacher stepped out of the room for a moment to talk with someone. The minute the door was closed, all three football players immediately began picking on Ponyboy.

~~

A/N: I bet this is a little weird, huh? If you've paid attention, you'll have noticed that I only do the double squiggle at the end of the chapter and the beginning. This time, I just felt that I had to say this right now. I have nothing against football players. I know a few, and it's quite fun to see them picked on – I mean, to hang out with them. Seriously, though, I have nothing at all against them, they just seem to be stereotypical Socs. Just look at Paul. Okay, I'm done. Shall we continue?

~~

By the time Johnny had turned around, all three were pushing Pony, shoving the smaller boy against the wall of the classroom. Johnny stood up and grabbed the nearest one by the collar of his shirt. He was slightly surprised to find that he was just taller than the Soc picking on his friend. The other two, one of whom had Pony in a headlock, turned to see why their friend had stopped.

"I suggest you let him go," Johnny growled. When they didn't, he shook the football player in his grip as if he weighed no more than an ounce. The other two looked at each other and threw Ponyboy into Johnny. Johnny instinctively dropped the Soc he was holding and wrapped his arms around the younger boy. He held Ponyboy out away from his for inspection.

"Are you okay, Pony?" Ponyboy only nodded and went back to his seat. Johnny glared at the Socs again before heading to his own seat. The three Socs looked at the two greasers, to each other, and back to the Greasers before taking their own seats. As soon as they sat down, conversation in the classroom resumed until the teacher walked back in.

Ponyboy was unable to pay attention to the lesson, though. Johnny sure had changed. He thought as the teacher went on talking. He never used to be so willing to get involved in someone else's fights. Even Dally's. Course, that could be because Dally would have attacked anyone that tried to get in the way of one of his fights. I don't know if I like Johnny like this. He's a little… too big. He's taller than Darry now, thanks to that last growth spurt. And I think his voice is even deeper. I thought it would be great to have Johnny back, but now that he is, I think I like how he was before he 'died' better.

~

"You sure you're okay, Ponyboy?"

"Yeah Johnny. Don't worry about it."

"What's going on you two?" Two-Bit asked as he and Dally walked up to meet them.

"A bunch of Socs tried to pick on him during fourth period."

"What? Where are they!" The Greasers looked at Steve as if he had grown another head. He had only begun to be protective of Ponyboy within the past few days. He had witnessed Ponyboy getting attacked, and holding his own, against four Socs. He joined the fight to even it out a little, and Ponyboy even managed to use a rock and cut one of them. Ever since then he had been more willing to admit that Pony wasn't as much of an annoying nuisance or a tag a long after all.

"How should we know?" Johnny asked. "I stopped 'em, so they'll probably leave him alone for a while."

"I guess. If they pick on you again, though…" Steve let the sentence trail off.

"I know. I'll get their names and addresses and you can go and have fun beating them up, right?"

"I hadn't thought of that, but yeah. You should do that!"

"Can we just go home now?" Dally whined, rubbing his head.

"What's wrong with you?" Two-Bit asked, staring at the blond.

"Some idiot just hit me in the head. The same spot I hit every morning Superman wakes us up."

"Sure. Let's go." Two-Bit, Steve, and Dally took the lead while Ponyboy and Johnny walked behind them.

"Hey, Pony, are you sure you're okay?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine?"

"Sorry, Man, I just wanted to make sure."

"Why?"

"Because I'm you're friend and it's my job to make sure they didn't hurt you."

"No, why did you get involved in my fight? You never have before."

"That's because I could never do any good before. If I had gotten into any of your fights before the fire I would have lost, and then we both would have been really messed up. I figured that if I stayed out of it, I could at least yell for the others before getting involved if it got too bad."

"What made that change?"

"I got bigger? I don't know. Maybe that I know I can take care of myself. It just really bothered me the way they were picking on you earlier. It almost reminded me of the way my dad would act towards me before he'd start hitting me. And the whole gang just has something against you getting hit. I didn't want it to get to that point."

"But why?"

"I don't know. I wanted to protect you. I didn't want to see you get hurt. Just like the night I killed Bob. I got involved in it 'cause they were drowning you."

"I thought you said they were going to beat you up after that."

"Yeah, but that doesn't really bother me. I f they had killed you, they would have gotten it out of their systems, and I can handle any drunk's beating. I could even then. But I couldn't let them hurt you, especially not kill you."

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"I had thought that you changed, but your only change was that you got bigger and your voice got deeper."

~~

A/N: Okay, that's the real end. It's past midnight, and I really need to get some sleep. Pixie Stix will only hold a person so long. The end is near. There's only one chapter left. I still can't remember all of where I was going with the sequel, so I'm going to need a lot more reviews in the next two chapters is you really want one. The next chapter will have a piece of what I will have decided to do with it. Like I said before, I still remember the big things, it's just the important minor things that I've lost, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

[1] – Disgusting, yes, but I just had to do it. It comes with being almost completely wide-awake at almost eleven o'clock at night. After waking up at eight-thirty in the morning. Especially when you've spent the last week waking up at close to noon. If you remember, in the movie the shower curtain looks kinda green-blue. Yeah… I had to.

Berserker Nightwitch: Guess who's back?

Dally: How? You've run out of annoying songs!

BN: Oh, didn't I tell you? Two years ago, my younger brother and I made a way to take that last song back up!

Darry: Back… up…

BN: Yep! Wanna hear?

Steve: Not really…

BN: Good! No bottles of beer on the wall, no bottles of beer. You fill one up; put it away. One bottle of beer on the wall! One bottle of-

Johnny: I usually love that song, but at midnight, we all just wanna sleep!

Darry, Dally, Steve, Two-Bit, Soda, Pony, and Randy: *nods*

BN: Um… how did Randy get here? I KNOW I didn't hire him as a muse…

Randy: I snuck in.

BN: How?

Randy: I delivered the pizza. That you didn't eat…

BN: It's in my fridge. I'm waiting until it gets colder.

Dally: The pizza or the weather? 'Cause you were wearing a jacket earlier today.

BN: The pizza!

Soda: Seriously, can we go to bed yet?

BN: Why are you waiting on me?

Pony: We still have a job to do when you finish talking.

BN: Why?

Darry: To earn our pay as muses.

Dally: Please, review so she'll get some sleep. Her eyes are getting all bloodshot, and her hair's falling out, and-

BN: You'll stop that sentence and take back all those lies before I burn your hair off!

Dally: She's keeping us up. Her hair's still in, but I'm sure her eyes are getting red.

BN: This is getting long, so I'll take over tonight. Please review and let me know what you think. Remember! The sequel is counting on YOU!! *points to audience*