Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders, and just the fact that I have to tell you that makes me question your sanity…

A/N: This is just a little something that I scrounged up one night when I was bored. Many times, when I can't find enough stories that I want to read, I simply write my own. This is NOT part of my series of one shots, but I am still working on those. Enjoy!

The Dying Art of Not Getting Caught

One rule: be smart, and if you're not, don't get yourself caught. We all lived by it. However, some still succeeded in being better than others. For instance, Johnny and I. If only the guys knew what we could get away with. They'd use our talent. Let it go to waste. But, we never got caught, and they never knew.

I could feel his thin arms wrapped around me, and I buried my head further into his shoulder. That smell, his smell, was so soothing, so comforting. He smelled of cigarette smoke, hair grease, and a scent that was purely Johnny, and purely indescribable.

His shoulder was warm under my head, his bare skin against mine a creating a sort of pleasing friction that I knew was bringing him out of the depths of sleep. I smiled against his naked chest, nuzzling my nose against one of those barely there pectoral muscles. He was so skinny. I swear he could hide behind a light post. God knows he can hide behind me. I had to laugh at the thought - because he'd done it on several different occasions, and Darry and Soda had never known that he was even in the house, let alone my room.

I knew he was awake when his hand came up and tangled itself in my no longer so greased hair. He always did that when he woke, ran a hand through my hair before pulling my head back and planting a kiss on my lips. I waited, my body coursing with anticipation, for that moment when his long, thin fingers would tug at the roots of every follicle that fit in his small hand. It took him longer today. I figured he was remembering - as he returned to consciousness - that we had nothing to hurry for today. It was a gorgeous spring Saturday morning, and Darry and Soda had both left for their respective jobs hours ago. I knew that he knew because he hadn't come to sleep with me until they'd left. Soda wouldn't understand me kicking him out of the bed we shared only for Johnny to take his place - and for completely different reasons, too.

I heard him yawn, and then felt the tightening of his fingers in my hair as he pulled my head back, stretching my neck as far as it would go. I barely caught his smile before his lips crashed into mine. Those bubblegum pink, soft as marshmallow, lips. I loved them more than I could ever tell him - mostly because I could never put it into words.

No one would believe me if I told them how aggressive our Johnny Cade was behind closed doors. They all thought they knew him so well. In reality, he saved the real stuff for me. And I liked it that way. "Mornin', Pony," he whispered, that deep, rough voice easily caressing my inner ear. I shivered against him, my chin resting lightly on his chest, my eyes closed in pure ecstasy.

"Mmm," was all I could say in response. I was so happy that I was beyond words. I wanted life to go on like this - just like this - forever. I hadn't known then that I only had a few short weeks left with the boy who was fast becoming the love of my life.

"Your hair's gross," he groaned, untangling his fingers and holding his hand away from both of us, as if he could see the nearly decomposed grease. "You need a shower."

His breastbone was vibrating under my chin with every word, and I couldn't have been more turned on than to be here with him. "You're not exactly squeaky clean either," I shot back playfully, trying my best not to laugh. He'd shown up late last night after another round of fighting with his dad. Not only was he bruised to the point of nearly being covered, but when he'd been thrown out of the house, his drunken father had been sure to push him hard enough for Johnny to fall into the dirt that was their yard. I raised a hand and drug a finger slowly down his cheek, then holding it at a distance to show him the dirt that came off. "And I don't even want to think about looking at the mess you probably left on the couch. And my sheets."

"Isn't it 'laundry day at the Curtis house' anyway?" he shrugged, raising an eyebrow and cocking his head to the side that only increased his puppy-dog look.

"Yeah," I smirked, "but you get to vacuum the couch."

We both laughed lightly at the joke. So often after an encounter, we ended up cleaning. It was something we enjoyed doing because we could relive the memories of even the simplest rendezvous. Of course, there were those times when he'd been forced to slip out the window or back door before Darry or Soda came bursting through the door and I was forced to clean up all on my own. It was still like reliving what we'd just done. But to this day, we'd never been caught.

"Get up," he groaned, doing a mix of stretching and pushing me off of him all at once. "I really do want that shower."

Him rubbing against me like that was sort of the beginning of the end. I knew at that moment that he'd intended for me to feel this way. To want to follow him into the room down the hall, to want to do unspeakable things to him in the nearly open shower. I jumped off of him and the bed all in one stride, grabbing the topmost sheet to wrap around us on the way to the bathroom. Granted, it was only down the hall, but you never really knew who would come bursting through the unlocked door at the most unexpected, inconvenient moment. We'd come to be masters of how to hide our secret.

He knew exactly what I aimed to do - lead him down that fateful hallway and into that awaiting shower. He smiled, that crooked, intoxicating smile that he knew drove me wild.

We made it down the hallway without anyone coming in to discover us. It was still early, and I chalked it up to the fact that no one else from the gang was awake - other than the two of us and my hard working brothers.

As I moved to turn the shower on - Johnny likes it as hot as his skin can stand - I heard him close the door behind us. I wasn't surprised when his arms went around my waist and rested atop mine where they held the sheet. Disarmingly, he planted a soft kiss on my collarbone, and my fingers and arms went limp, allowing the sheet to fall into a puddle around my - no, our - feet.

He turned me around, looking up into my eyes with those dark, shadowy pools, that were burning with lust and desire - like so often when caught in this situation. He wasn't that much shorter than me. He barely had to stretch to plant a feverish kiss upon my lips, and I felt his delicate tongue dart out from between his own lips to lightly caress mine.

I could feel one of the arms that was wrapped around me stretch out to test the water coming from the shower, and since he didn't immediately pull away from it, I assumed that it was at a perfect temperature. I pulled away from our lip lock, and found my eyes locked with his.

"Come on," I prodded, grabbing him by the wrist and leading him into the shower, each of us stepping carefully over the side of the bathtub.

He stood under the hot stream of water as it ran down over his hair, in streams down his face, creating streaks in the dirt, and then further down his chest, stomach, and finally to those thin hips. I was no stranger to his arousal, but every time I caught a glimpse, I was left motionless and speechless. He looked at me, all that water running down his body, and I couldn't help myself, I grasped him behind the neck and pulled him to me, crashing our lips together in a bruising embrace.

My hand slid down his wet body, and my fingers wrapped around his erection. I felt him gasp against my lips and smiled devilishly. Slowly, I ran my water slicked fingers up and down his pulsing member, loving the sound of his breath getting shorter, coming in tiny gulps, his eyes wide, watching my face all the while. I knew that he was surprised by my actions. I wasn't normally this forward, but I couldn't help myself.

He was now reduced to no more than a creature of habit, his hips jerking in spasms against my fist, his chest rising and quickly falling with those short, lustful pants. I was caught off guard when he spun me around, and I lost my breath under the barrage of water, but he pushed me further, and I felt my shoulder blades connect with the wall. I'd forgotten that the shower curtain opened at the back, but he hadn't. As one hand gripped my shoulder tightly, the other came to rest next to my head on the wall, holding both of us up now.

I could hear his light moans just above the spray, and I knew that he was getting close. His body was tense with pleasure, and I nearly lost myself at the sight of it. His fingertips dug further into my skin, and I knew he'd left bruises, but it didn't matter, as his forehead connected with my breastbone, and he leaned forward to plant small kisses on my chest.

He slid closer to me, his hips pounding faster against my hand, the friction of my rough palm driving him crazy. I could hear my name coming off those lips in short whispers, and I'd never felt prouder. His body sped up, and so did my hand. The small hand he held against my shoulder fell, and his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, as he pulled us together, and I felt our connection brush against my own arousal, sending sparks through my entire body. I knew that once we were finished in the shower, I wanted nothing more than to bury myself inside of him.

His eyes closed tight against the pleasure and the morning sunlight that came through the shower curtain, and I decided right there that I'd never seen - nor would I ever see again - anything so beautiful as that. His hips jerked against mine as he came, and there was no mistaking that it was my name that he screamed in that fitful moment.

It was then that I realized that the water had gone cold, while Johnny rested against me, his forehead on my shoulder as he tried to bring his breathing under control once again. I carefully reached behind me, turning of the faucet, as I felt his small body shiver against me. I knew that he then realized that the water was cold. He was prone to delayed reactions in this state.

As his breath slowed and evened out, I wrapped my arms around him, holding us together like that for a while. Though I could feel the pain of my own throbbing erection, it didn't matter, I was content.

It must have been more than an hour later, while Johnny and I lay in my bed once again, no longer water dripping from our bodies, but sweat, that we heard the steps on the front porch. Though we'd become used to these frantic moments before someone walked in and discovered our secret, we still panicked. By the time the screen door was screeching open, Johnny had already pulled on his jeans, and was searching for his shirt while I pulled on my own clothes.

I tossed him the black t-shirt from my bed as I pulled my own white tee on, and he smiled a silent 'thanks'. I nodded, and cringed when Two-Bit's voice came wafting down the hallway. "Ponyboy! You home?"

"Be there in a second, just...reading," I called, watching Johnny slip into that worn out jeans jacket. I slid the window open silently, and has he swung one leg out, he turned to look at me, our bodies touching, our faces inches from it. "Later, Johnnycake," I whispered.

He smiled that crooked, disarming smile once again, and mouthed an 'I love you' to me before planting those sinfully pink lips against mine in a final embrace. I nodded, returning his smile, and before I knew it, he'd jumped out the window and disappeared behind bushes and trees.

I closed the window only moments before Two-Bit swung open the bedroom door, that cheesy grin planted firmly on his face like always. I sighed, relieved, as he took in my surroundings.

"What the hell happened in here?" he asked, and for the first time, I noticed the rumpled sheets and the clothes and books strewn around the floor. "This place looks like it was hit by a tornado."

"Well, you know Soda, when he can't find his clothes in the morning he has to turn the room upside down," I joked, passing him casually as I walked out into the hallway, Two-Bit quick on my heels.

I smiled to myself, knowing that Johnny and I truly were artists.

"Seen Johnnycake this mornin'?" Two-Bit called from the kitchen between mouthfuls of chocolate cake. He looked at me, stretched out on the couch, my eyes on the television. I shook my head, my face as straight and stern as ever. Two-Bit shrugged, giving up, and joining me to watch Mickey Mouse.

Fin