Mentioning the apple pie wasn't a good idea. In fact, the dinner itself might not have been a good idea. Not for regret, really. It was because of how it stuck with Dallas.
Being dead took the edge off of most things now. Worrying about where to go at night, worrying about money, none of that was anything to occupy himself with anymore. It wasn't necessarily a relief to not worry about; what it does leave though, are other things, more material things that Dallas had started to forget.
Dallas thinks about the dinner through the day, about the sensation of beer sliding down his throat, about the taste of apple pie on his tongue, about the feel of the table beneath his fingers. He thinks about what it had been like to be slapped on the back, to bump shoulders, to smack Curly on the back. Human touch, human feeling that he had always taken for granted before, in both the positive and negative.
In all the time he had been a ghost (a word he was starting to come around to, if not outright resent), there had always been a sense of loss for certain things: alcohol, for a pretty dame, cigarettes. It wasn't until he actually took over Ponyboy's body for one dinner that the real measure of loss came to him, that a real need to have those simple, ordinary things came over him. Before, simply being back was shocking enough, adjusting to an altered state where nothing was exactly the same.
Not anymore, though. Taking over Ponyboy once out of defense, he hadn't considered much at all. Protecting him from the other greaser was more of an immediate, violent priority. Interacting with others, with boys he'd known before, in a home he'd used to occupy, threw everything into a new spin of things to adjust to, to consider.
Sitting here now, watching as Ponyboy talked with Steve and Soda, biting into what he normally had considered to be a shitty gas station sandwich, he'd never craved something like that shitty sandwich in his life. Even sitting in jail for ninety days without a smoke didn't leave such an ache this strong in Dallas. Saying it was like a hunger wasn't quite correct, as the feeling didn't necessarily live in his stomach, didn't have the same wringing tautness and urgency to it that it had in life. It felt almost like an echo of it, a memory of hunger, and it was strong.
The temptation to reach out for a simple sandwich that he hadn't even enjoyed before felt alien in its insistence. The need to have taste enough to deem it a shitty sandwich was a strange need to have, in an already strange situation.
It was driving him crazy thinking about it so intently for the first time, really missing it. Everything else had happened so fast, had been something to settle into, and now it was starting to nitpick at him with every passing thought in a way it hadn't weeks ago.
Maybe he'd been too distracted with the situation at hand. Or maybe it had slipped his mind. Not anymore.
The conversation didn't much matter to him. Ponyboy's eyes tracked him every so often he could, as Dallas worked his way across the DX station, looking around at it, clocking for subtle little changes. He'd come here when he could, stealing at times when he thought he could get away with it and a few times where he couldn't. Maybe it looked a little more yellow than before; otherwise, it hadn't changed very much.
The more he circled it though, the more he started to catalogue the things he couldn't feel: the stupid floor, the yellowing walls, the counter. Couldn't smell the gasoline, something he used to always complain about before and one of the strongest smells he'd ever encountered.
The lights begin to flicker in the station.
"Can we get the fuck out of here?" Dallas turns on his heel, frustrated, unable to vent it anywhere else. Ponyboy flicks his eyes toward him, taking another bite of the sandwich as he does it.
The lights flicker again. For a moment, Dallas can taste it, the sandwich: the cheap white bread, the tuna used to make it—
It feels like a shock runs through him, realizing that the taste is there on his tongue. A look of surprised revulsion shows on his face, and Dallas tries to push the taste away.
He does not catch, for a moment, the expression mirrored on Ponyboy's face. It flickers out, and Ponyboy goes back to finishing off the sandwich, like normal.