The place described in this chapter is real. I changed the name and a bit of the geography, though...
When Dallas entered the house he was met by a long, deplorable moan.
"But Mom - you promised!"
"I know, baby, but I have to work."
Dallas, feeling a bit nosy, stood by the kitchen door and listened in. The weight of the new pack of Kools in his pocket distracted him slightly. But the need for a smoke could wait; he had a feeling eavesdropping might help him to get a few things figured out.
"It's not that," Johnny said acridly. "I know you do. I just meant you promised he-"
"Well, in case you haven't noticed, he is still on the Eastern coast. I'm sorry to have promised you while we were moving - I forgot."
"Did he at least call?"
Dally could see the baffled expression on her face briefly before she moved out of his range of sight, replying, "Call? What for?"
"To apologize, in the l-"
They instantly fell silent as the third party trotted in, looking between the two with a look of bemusement.
I step out for smokes one minute, and the next a family crisis is underway? Dallas thought. Then, the obstinate, And just who is "he"?
"You kids fight'n?" he asked dryly. That's just how they were looking at him now, though; like a couple of kids who went and broke a neighbor's window playing ball.
"Not fighting, really," Johnny said, in a very guilty voice. "Just..."
"Having a disagreement," Mrs. Cade finished hurriedly. "He wants to go down to Iopyle, but Lord knows I won't be able to take him. Flaking at the last second - I swear, that's so like So-"
"How far is it?" Dally piped up. "I could take him over Thanksgiving break, if you want."
Johnny was looking at him like he was a god, and Mrs. Cade might've seemed almost mad if it hadn't been for the sheer outrageous statement.
"It's quite a ways up - you sure you'll be able to make the trip?"
"I've driven longer distances," he said casually. He hoped she wouldn't draw attention to the fact she hadn't told him how far it was yet. "Relax, I've had my license f-"
"You're wonderful!" Johnny burst. With a flourish, he pulled him into an embrace. Dally blushed excessively, laughing it off. There was no prettier a picture; Mrs. Cade looked between the two, smiling fondly to herself. Her boys.
"Fine," she decided without much of a fight. "Dallas, I'll give you directions." She paused. "How will you get there? Do you have a car?"
"What about yours, Mom?" Johnny inquired. "Or do you need that for work?"
Dally shrugged. "I'll get my hands on a car. No problem."
They both peered at him. The intensity of their stares caused him to shift from foot to foot, suddenly self-conscious.
"What?" he asked, swallowing. "What's wrong with that? Look, I got a buddy who owes me one-"
"Oh," they sighed, simultaneously. He realized, with a start, they had expected him to acquire it by criminal standards.
How was he supposed to react to that?
"Anyway," Johnny said brusquely, breaking the awkward silence. "Mom - those directions...?"
"Oh - right," she tittered apologetically, ushering Dally over.
"The place is called Iopyle - weird name, I know - it's spelled like this, yatta yatta yatta..."
She recited a complicated list of directions Dallas found surprisingly much easier to understand after he read them over on paper.
"...You might want to leave on Thanksgiving day to beat pre/post traffic..."
Dally looked at her, eyebrow cocked inquisitively.
"What? Aren't we doing anything for Thanksgiving? Dinner?"
"Work," she confessed. "Which is why I had them plan this. I figured Johnny might as well have some sort of treat. Which reminds me..."
She grinned. "You're a life saver."
Dally flushed, again. "Yeah? You think?"
Mrs. Cade nodded eagerly. "I owe you one for this, definitely. Anything within reason."
He thought a minute or two before lowering his voice. "What... what about the story? The full story? I could pay you back with anything that's too much with parts of my own..."
Her smile didn't falter for a moment.
"We'll see."
-
The car was stuffy and of an old make, a T-bird maybe (just like the song), but what it lacked in finesse it made up for in speed. Usually, anyway; not now, as it inched through traffic thicker than false hair plugs.
Still, as they slowly made progress, it seemed to Dallas that all of Autumn had decided to take a trip right on Thanksgiving day rather than the day before or after. They were "beating traffic", he supposed.
The car ride hadn't done much for the two in terms of bonding. They had given each other an affectionate pat on the arm or leg a couple times, a few shy smiles, but that was as far as it got. Dally realized the discomfort of the situation as being purely nerves and bashfulness. Which, to Dallas, was the root of boredom and the beginning of a slow and unsteady pacing.
What the two of them needed was a good talk, one of the talents required for a real relationship Dallas sorely lacked. Johnny couldn't be anymore knowledgeable than he was; Dallas didn't doubt this was probably Johnny's first, beyond-the-playground relationship.
Still, he was the one to break the ice.
"So, I guess we're together now, huh?"
In the eyes of others, they'd already been "together" for quite a while. However, this was the first time they said it out loud to each other.
"Yeah," Dally said, keeping his eyes on the road as the group of cars ahead finally lapsed into motion. He managed a crooked (but just as genuine) smile for Johnny, anyway. "I guess we are."
It was as simple as that.
-
Oh, how Ponyboy loathed the holidays.
Being an angsty teenager from one of those Glory-Hallelujah-that's-big! families, when Thanksgiving rolled around, he anticipated it with much grief.
"Lucky!" Bryon had proclaimed from over the phone, safe and far way from the "luckiness" of it all. "I wish I had a big family with loads of obscure cousins."
"It's like meeting new people every time they come," Pony said dryly, "there's so many."
He could've sworn he heard Bryon snap his fingers over the phone. "Oh - how's hat oldest cousin? The one with the big software company in Iowa?"
Bryon's mother had liked that one. Hit on him a couple of times, drove his father crazy. "Yeah, he's fine. But he's not the oldest anymore - we found his real daddy; turns out he has an older brother."
"Wow. Makes you proud to be from a big Southern family, right?"
"So excited I could just vomit."
After he hung up, Pony practiced his scowling on a particularly rowdy cousin who dragged him into a headlock, a teenage niece (who, ashamedly, was older than him) intercepting the phone for a long-distance call.
"Don't you have a god damn cell?" he growled, attempting to get cousin twenty-four (he had given up on learning all their names, instead settling on referring to them all by number) to shove off.
The niece pursed her lips, black ringlets of frizzy hair dominating her face. "Auntie! Ponyboy's using nasty language again!"
"Hey!" another cousin piped up. "I thought you said you was Mike now!"
They guffawed, distracting Twenty-four long enough for MP to get away.
Pony successfully escaped to the kitchen, wherein his mother stood at the counter, chopping carrots. He sighed long and hard, leaning against the doorframe of the threshold.
"I hate the holidays," he said in a stiff voice. His mother sighed as well.
"We should have named you 'Grinch' like we originally planned. Or 'Scrooge'."
"S'not too late," his father quipped, stealing a carrot chunk as he entered. He kissed his wife's neck. "He wouldn't mind changing his name. It'd only be the fourth time this week, right Mike?"
Pony turned on his heel immediately. The whole world seemed to be laughing at him.
He didn't need this.
The next twelve minutes were spent tossing rocks at Bryon's window. He was just about to contemplate throwing something slightly larger, maybe to shatter the window, when his friend finally emerged.
"Daddy says I can't have boys over yet," he remarked. Still, the wild-eyed expression said otherwise. Bryon was happy to see him.
"Can I come in?" Mike asked, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. Bryon paused to turn around, glancing behind him.
"Oh - they're eating," he said, apologetically. He then caught the defeated look on Pony's face and amended, "Just let me get my coat, okay?"
They had wasted another dozen minutes, time slowly trickling by, when Pony blurted what was on his mind.
"Thanks."
Bryon blinked. Then laughed. "Hey, no problem. Thanksgiving with them is like hell in a hand basket, the two of them always bickering. It's nice to just get-"
"No, not that. Not just that," Pony saved. "You've just... You've never told me, 'Pony, you need a hobby' or, 'Don't you have any other friends?' when I ask you to do things like this." He adjusted his coat, flipping his collar up. "You take pretty much everything I say without question."
Bryon bit his lip. "This is some serious Brokeback Mountain shit going on here."
Mike looked at him, exasperated. "I am - serious, I mean."
They stopped walking, Bryon pausing to kick up some dirt that had piled in the street. Pony watched him, hands in pockets.
"It's like... you really don't care one way or another."
Then in a high, desperate voice, Bryon beseeched, "Ponyboy, I could never tell you to change. You're always real stressed about that, about changing to fit everybody's needs. You just can't let things be." The whole time he said this, Bryon hadn't looked up. He did now, meeting Pony's eyes with red-faced abandon. "Least of all you."
He paused to take a deep breath, to toy nervously with his hair, avoiding Pony's eyes again. "And here we are, standing in the middle of Autumn, letting our hearts out all over." By the way he said it, you couldn't tell if he meant the town or the season. "I couldn't care less what you're like. I could never reject you."
Pony blinked. He oozed calmness, and yet he felt the insides of his chest buzz with the gravity of what had been said.
"Now you're the one going queer on me, cowboy."
"And now I'm also the one being serious."
"Me, too."
There were a thousand and one ways to interpret that. You're being gay. Just stop it, or maybe, Tone it down a bit, Bry.
There was the offbeat meaning, Pony's tone of voice, that opened another door.
They flushed simultaneously at the implication.
Bryon brought up the courage to grin goofily. "Can I be Ledger to your Gyllenhaal? Or do you call tops?"
Pony, for the first time since hitting puberty, smiled a genuine smile.
"You idiot," he uttered, softly.
-
Thankfully, the sun was still out when they arrived at Iopyle. Dallas parked the car between a grouping of trees and a motorcycle before twisting in his seat to grill Johnny.
"Okay, we're here - do I have to pay anything? Do we have to sign in anywhere?"
"Nope!" Johnny replied cheerfully. In one swift movement he had popped the door open and hopped out. "Now come on!"
Dally followed warily, something that had been bugging him since agreeing to go on the trip finally resurfacing.
"Hey, Johnnycake?"
He turned but didn't stop moving, instead switching to walking backwards. "Yeah?" he called.
"What exactly is Iopyle?"
Johnny smiled, slowing his pace. "You'll see."
Dallas hesitated before locking the car, running to catch up.
It was a waterfall. Within it, there was a large outcropping of boulders and large rocks on which the tourists played, keeping to the drier bits, clinging to safety. A wooden structure, which had supposedly once been a train bridge, spanned over the falls to the thick bushel of woods on the other side of the miniature river.
Dally stared at it, shocked. It was no Niagra, but he'd never seen so much nature in one place - especially not growing up.
"Well?" Johnny asked, having already made it to the foot of the bridge. "Come on!"
Dally came on, head semi-rotating in a tourist-fashion.
A line of shops. A middle-aged woman with her breasts bunched into a shirt twenty-sizes two small. Families: and lots of them. This was not place where people normally came alone, so he stuck close to Johnny for appearances.
They set off over the bridge, a group of girls giggling at them as they passed. Johnny smiled bashfully, keeping his head down as they went by to the delight of them, who giggled. Little did they know, they were not the reason for it; Dallas had clasped his hand ever so briefly, whispering something - dirty? tender? - in his ear.
The two of them hiked for a good half of the day, stopping to rest now and then. By the time they actually decided to check out the falls themselves, it was nearing twilight.
"I love the sunsets here," Johnny gasped, nearly falling to his ass on the hard rock. Dallas meandered, slumping in a sweaty heap.
"That's not a forest," he grunted, smoker-lungs ready to give out. "It's a jungle."
Rather than copy the people around them, removing their shoes and socks and dipping a toe in at a time, they splashed their way into a weaker current of water, careful yet reckless as they cooled themselves off.
When they finally settled down, it was side-by-side on a secluded span of rock, the moistness dampening the backs of their jeans and their pant legs rolled as they dipped their feet in.
It was there that Johnny passed out against him, leaving Dallas time to mull things over.
"Oh!" a cute chick squealed, her black bob of a hairdo bouncing about her ears. She pointed to Johnny.
"What is it?" A black girl, her friend by the looks of it, made her way over as well. She looked real good in yellow.
"Aw!" she cooed to Dally. "Is that your little brother?"
Johnny and Dally didn't look anything alike, but it was the safest inference. Not in the mood for correcting them or having to explain things away, Dallas replied, "Sure."
It was an odd way to answer a question like that, but they giggled again all the same, complimenting him on how the two looked good together. Dally returned their reactions with a phony smile, nodding and "uh huh"-ing every now and then. Talking to girls just wasn't as fun as it used to be before Johnny. Once he'd found refuge in them, a sort of makeshift shelter from what he'd had to do (or, what his father made him do) when funds ran low. Now they were just irritating.
Wow. Either he was crazy or he just cared about Johnny that much. Both girls had had great legs, but he'd deflected each flirt without much apathy.
After they left, a little sore at their lack of courting success, Johnny began to stir.
"Right on time," Dally said to him softly, his friend's big eyes blearily blinking away sleep. "It's getting late. We'll want to high-tail it out of here if you ever want to see your mom again."
Rubbing his eyes, Johnny mumbled, "What time is it?"
Dally felt a powerful pull in the pit of his chest, an indescribable sensation of being overwhelmed... but with what? He wondered suddenly if that was ever how Johnny felt around him.
"Um, I don't know. We still gotta get out of here." The moment was gone, and he glanced at his watch, invisible in the dark. The only after affect was a quickened heartbeat. "I guess you missed most of the sunset."
Johnny shrugged. "Maybe next time. I enjoyed myself, anyway."
He looked at Dallas, smile crooked slightly askew.
"You know, I think... I think I love you."
OH EM GEE, I AM GETTING SO OFF-TRACK! -fans self- Lordy, I thought I'd gotten over my love for Pony and Bryon. B-but I can't help it! Pony-Mike's such a screen-hog, and wherever he goes, Bryon does as well. They still have some more appearances to make, from wangsty to comic-relief, but I promise, -promise- not to forget who the real stars are! Um... Tim and Darry, right? 8D
(and for my pervy fans - my handwriting's awful. So, when I went to went the line "nearly falling to his ass on the hard rock", I realized "rock" looked like... something else entirely.)