When he's desperately vulnerable and tired of wasting the world's oxygen, he just decides to grab his heater and go for it. He wasn't a damn hero, after all, it's not at all like the papers said. He could save a bunch of kids but not his closest friend- what the fuck kind of a hero was that?
And the rest is a blur to him. He draws the others out of the house after him, to prove to that stupid kid Pony that he'd better shape up, become harder to the world. Do what he couldn't.
But maybe it was just loneliness.
A couple of bullets ring out and all of his brothers are screaming, a sound so horrible he kind of wishes that that old man in the shop had managed to shoot him before he made the call. He goes down, on his knee, dragging and spitting at the stupid fuzz in his dying moments.
But he's not really dragging his body towards them, but the image of his mother that appears after his lungs are starting to fill with what must be blood.
He sees his mother, who wasn't biologically related to him but his mother nonetheless, with her clothes and ridiculous makeup, the look being made even more strange by the large tearstains, making the look run down her face.
"Dallas," she says sternly, just like the day before she died, the day before he went to prison, "I didn't pick you out of that alleyway for this. My boy, my sweet boy... I loved my child, not the crook you became."
It's getting harder to breathe, and he's guessing she notices, because she holds out her hand, her long manicured fingers outstretched, and says, "Come here, sweet boy."
Dallas' eyes grow big, then close, and he does what his mother tells him to.
The last thing he sees is that stupid kid's green eyes, tear filled and horrified.