Disclaimer: I still don't own the Outsiders. Sorry to disappoint you all. (No I don't say y'all in real life, I just make the characters in my fanfics do it.)

Well, I said I thought I was done with this, but I have to agree that the way the last chapter ended was a little disappointing. Kind of a cop out. So okay, here's some more. I still don't know where I'm going with this though. Please read and review.

A Place to Crash

Chapter 6

Dally looked without much interest at the brunette sleeping next to him in the back room at Bucks. The strange thing was, the whole time they'd been making out (they hadn't even done anything more than that,) Dally kept thinking about kissing Johnny. It had just been some strange feverish dream, Dally assured himself. Why did he keep thinking about it though?

He hadn't meant to actually follow the doctor's advice and take things easy, but he had been. First he hadn't won his race, then he hadn't had sex with a hot girl. It just wasn't his day.

Dally knew he wasn't exactly attractive, but girls seemed to like him. Not for a relationship but for a night at least. Sylvia, well he'd that that was real, but obviously it hadn't been all that meaningful to her. Dally played with the ring again. It just reminded him of his failures with girls. Well it also reminded him of that night when he rolled that drunken senior, that had been pretty fun…

Dally pulled his shirt back on and got out of bed, leaving the girl, he didn't even know her name, sleeping there.

He headed home, if you could call it that. It didn't feel much like home to him. It was a place to crash though and it was fairly safe. Dally's father didn't care much about him, but he hadn't laid a hand on him in over a year. He just couldn't be bothered to care anymore. Dally sometimes wished he had siblings, when he saw what the Curtis's had it made him a little jealous. But mostly Dally was glad that his parents hadn't had anymore kids to screw up, besides he had the gang, they were family enough.

Dally wandered into the house. His father was sitting at the kitchen table drinking. Big shock there. Dally didn't even know if his father knew that he'd been in the hospital. Obviously paying the bill was going to be up to Dally. They didn't have insurance and his father certainly wasn't going to do it. He'd better start winning some rodeos.

Dally sighed and laid down on the couch. That was half the reason he didn't mind sleeping at the Curtis's. Either way he was on a couch. At least there it didn't involve listening to his father get shit faced. He was still recovering though and fell asleep almost immediately.

Dally woke up around noon. His father wasn't there. Dally wondered if he'd finally found himself a job. It probably wouldn't last long. He showered and dressed quickly. Dally headed out, not going any where in particular. It was too early in the day for anything interesting to be going on so he walked on over to the DX. Steve was still in school, but Soda was there, not doing much from the looks of things. He was working the register and since most of his fan club still had school, there wasn't much for him to do.

"Hey Dally, how you doing?"

"Not bad. How about you?"

Soda shrugged. "Okay."

Dally was bored.

"If I catch you taking anything…" Soda warned. He wouldn't put it past Dallas.

Dally rolled his eyes. He already had a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He knew full well Soda wasn't going to do anything about it.

"What time does the high school get out?"

Soda glanced at the clock. "In about half an hour."

Dally nodded. "See ya around." He headed off towards the high school. He knew he looked tough, and the nervous, contemptuous looks he got from passers by reinforced it.

The final bell was just ringing as Dally got to the high school. Glory he thought to himself those kids looked young. Half of them weren't any younger than he was Dally knew, but they looked child like. Dally supposed he was jaded, he preferred to think of it as knowing the score, but yeah, jaded worked too. He knew he was harder than any of the other members of the gang. Physically Darry could probably take him, but it would be a good fight.

Two Bit walked over grinning and waving like a madman. He never could stay angry about anything for long. It was especially difficult since Dally didn't seem to realize that Two Bit should be upset with him.

Johnny came over a minute later.

"Is Ponyboy at practice?" Dally asked.

Johnny nodded. "He won't be out until about 6 tonight."

"Y'all want to get a drink?" Dally asked.

Johnny nodded. Two Bit had skipped most of his classes and spent the majority of his day having lunch blowing straws at passing girls, but he didn't mind getting another drink. They walked over to the shopping center. There was a malt shop attached to the drug store.

The pharmacist saw them the moment they walked it. "Keith! It's so good to see you again. How's your grandmother doing?"

"She died," Two Bit replied without blinking an eye.

The pharmacist babbled on about how sorry he was, and gave them all free cokes to express his condolences.

After he'd left, the three of them sat on stools at the counter. Talking with the pharmacist had reminded Two Bit of something.

"So y'all been doing some bonding lately?"

Johnny blushed and began examining his coke with a great deal of interest. He was hoping that Two Bit would just forget about the whole thing like Dally so conveniently had.

"Huh?" Dally asked.

Two Bit laughed.