Well I thought I'd just make chapter 3 the end, but what the heck. Thanks for all the reviews. Oh, I hadn't even realized that I had the anonymous review feature disabled. Oops. (I turned it back on.) Thanks for letting me know, hopefully that'll make it more convenient to review, which I hope people will continue to do.

I still don't own The Outsiders or anything related to them. (I own a copy of the book, but I don't think that that counts.)

Warnings: the same as before, slightly slashy (nothing much) and a little angst, a little swearing, nothing too bad.

A Place to Crash

Chapter 4

Johnny leaned in about to kiss Dally.

"Stop."

Johnny pulled back. He knew it. He knew he shouldn't have pushed his luck. It had just seemed like the natural thing to do. They were lying on the couch and he hadn't even known that Dally was awake. Kissing him had just seemed obvious.

"You don't want to get sick." Dally said reasonably. He wasn't sure if that was really why he didn't want to kiss, but it was a good enough reason for now.

"Right, sorry." Johnny relaxed, relieved that it was nothing personal. It wasn't that Dally didn't like him.

"Glory Johnnycakes, if I didn't know better I'd say you were trying to take advantage of me."

Johnny blushed. "No I didn't, I mean I just…"

Dally laughed. It was a surprisingly genuine laugh for him. "What time is it?"

"Um…," Johnny squinted to see the clock sitting on top of the television set. "Like two thirty."

"Ponyboy'll be home soon."

"Right."

"So maybe you should let go of me."

"Oh, sorry, right." Johnny blushed again (it seemed that that was all he did lately) and let go of Dally. He moved over to the opposite end of the couch.

"Think it's too early to take another one of them things?" Dally asked gesturing at the bottle of pills on the floor.

"Probably. Maybe you could take aspirin or something now?"

Dally shrugged and wandered into the kitchen. Why was standing up so difficult? Just staying on his feet was requiring way my concentration than it out to. The room faded in and out of focus.

"Shit," Dally muttered to himself and he sank to his knees. Breathing was so damn difficult. He swore it felt like someone was sitting on his chest; someone big. Dally squeezed his eyes shut, he wasn't ready yet to yell for help. It was just too demeaning. He heard the front door slam and someone walked in.

In a second Soda was standing over him looking genuinely confused. "Dally? Why you sittin on the floor?"

"I ain't sittin, I'm looking for something I dropped."

"Oh, need help?" Soda knelt down next to him and began scanning the floor. "What'd you lose?"

"Nothin, it ain't important."

Soda shrugged. "Okay." He stood up and without giving it much thought extended his arm to help Dally up as well."

If Dally had known what providence was, that's what he would have called it. He let Soda pull him to his feet. The second Dally was on his feet though his knees buckled. Soda grabbed him.

"You wasn't really lookin for something huh?"

Dally shrugged. He walked slowly back to the couch leaning on Soda for support. Johnny had to bit his lip to keep from saying anything.

Once Dally was safely lying back down, Johnny watching him worriedly Soda sprawled out on the living room floor.

"So you two been here all day?"

"Uh-huh," Johnny replied. Dally didn't feel like talking. He was too dizzy even to be embarrassed and that was starting to scare him.

"I got off work early. It was a slow day. Two Bit came by the station earlier. Said Dally practically kicked him out."

Johnny shrugged, wondering what exactly Two Bit had said.

"He said he didn't realize until he was half way out that door that it wasn't Dally's house to kick him out of. He was kinda sore about that."

"Oh."

"I'm gonna go change." Soda said, suddenly remembering that he was still wearing his greasy work shirt.

"Gimme another one of those there would you?" Dally asked gesturing to the antibiotics. Johnny had thought that they'd already established that it was too early to take another one, but he obediently handed the bottle over.

Dally squinted at the instructions on the packaging. One, three times a day. He'd only had one so far so opted to take another one.

"Y'all hungry?" Soda asked, walking back down stairs to the living room.

Johnny nodded.

"No." Dally had really been enjoying the quiet in the house before Soda had come in. He considered asking him to leave but thought better of it considering that it was his house.

"You haven't had nothin to eat all day…" Johnny said barely above a whisper.

"Because I ain't hungry." It took effort to keep from getting annoyed.

Johnny looked down. He was trying not to worry, but Dally was making things difficult.

"Well what do you want?" Soda asked. "We might have some more cake or something, and I can make up sandwiches. You sure you ain't hungry Dal?"

"Yeah."

"That sounds good."

"I'd better make extra, Pony'll be home from track practice pretty soon and Darry'll be in from work."

Johnny had forgotten that Ponyboy had track that afternoon.

Soda bounced off into the kitchen.

"I can take care of myself," Dally hissed once Sodapop was out of earshot.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to…" Johnny averted his eyes. "I'm gonna get going." He hoped Dally would stop him, say how he knew Johnny had only been looking out for his best interests and apologize for being upset.

Instead Dally just shrugged.

Johnny got up and walked hurriedly out the door. Dammit he thought to himself, how could I be so stupid. It had been too easy to forget that it was Dally there. No matter how sick or miserable he was, Dally was still Dally.

Dally groaned. He was going to have to go and apologize. At that moment he didn't even think he could get off the couch though.

Please please let me know what you think. I love feedback.