For Mallory, the one who actually wrote Buck's original, blatant and often politically incorrect rants. (There were going to be three specific ones, but for the sake of my mostly clean reputation I had to cut them.)
Thanks again to my readers - I swear, your reviews make me so happy! X3 I save all my favorites and read them when I'm depressed. I really can't express enough thanks to youse'all. 8D (Note: the author is from Jersey, which therefore makes "youse'all" a real word.)
Dallas Winston Sr. absolutely did not like having his possessions taken from him, sober or drunk. The only reason he hadn't come to claim what was his was that, the day after Dally ran out, a few regular clients arrived unannounced - and, upon finding no "goods" with which to service themselves, they beat him to a bloody pulp. The next few days would bring much the same.
The cycle continued and, in a purple haze of wine and bruises, lying in his slow recuperation on the ratty floors of his two-bit apartment, Dally's father had an epiphany.
Let the kid run. Let him hide; it didn't matter. He was prone to slip up sooner or later.
-
Johnny checked the phone history, uttered a rare foul word, and then selected the number that belonged to the person he wished most to see.
It rang three times on his first try and four on the second, marking seven beats in all he waited only to embrace the agony of being disconnected. He was ready to give up and perhaps leave a message when he was finally answered.
"I wanted to talk to you, Johnny," was the man's initial greeting, coming across brusque and impolite. Johnny let it slide; there were bigger fish to fry.
"Then why didn't you leave a message?"
The man's voice quavered on response, and Johnny realized with a sudden wave of crimson to his countenance (1) what time it'd be on his side of the country. He suddenly was feeling as if he were the guilty one.
"Oh, you know, that answering machine of yours. It's one of those robotic, anonymous ones; threw me off."
Johnny knew that was a lie. He knew it because the man had not hesitated to call them annually and obsessively for the first week or so that they had lived there. "You mean it has nothing to do with Mom?"
He heard a sharp intake of breath.
"It might," the man replied.
Johnny noted in the silence that followed the odd, out-of-tune breathing patterns.
"Dally, if you're there, I wouldn't mind you hanging up, please."
He imagined he heard a stifled curse and the click of the receiver. His father's voice in resuming the conversation was placid.
"That the stray your mother took in?"
Johnny, despite knowing his father had been orphaned himself, decided it safest if he change the subject. He ventured, "So, how's your roommate doing?"
Meanwhile, Dally watched from the safety of the doorway, anticipating a scolding and also trying to catch all else that he could of the conversation. Right now, that was proving particularly difficult; the other man, who Dally did not recognize, was seemingly chatting Johnny's ear off. The only responses the teenager gave for a while were little nods without so much as an "mm hmm" on his part.
Dally noted the cold parting words and solemn look on his lover's face as he hung up on what Dallas had initially thought to be his father. Something about Johnny's earlier connotation to father figures made him believe otherwise; on the other hand, there had been that little note of disappointment in his voice...
Johnny shouldered past him, eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration - a look Dally had taken to dubbing the "worried brows", usually associated with Pony or Dallas himself. By now, anyone could tell the kid couldn't help but to dote and worry over those he loved; even the asshole-ish ones.
"Hey, hey!" Dallas cried out, realizing his prey was escaping. He scrambled after him, calling again and causing Johnny to pause in his ascension of the stairs.
"Listen," Dallas snapped, before realizing how hostile he sounded. "Listen," he tried again, softer this time. "I was wondering if you wanted to accompany me somewhere this weekend. We'll call it a boys' night out."
Johnny smiled. "Never thought I'd hear you say that."
Dallas frowned, slightly offended. "What do you mean by that? I took you to that Iopyle place, didn't I?"
Johnny laughed, a musical and eerily feminine sound, and he started downwards again. "No - you take me places, sure, but I just mean I didn't expect you to say 'boys' night out'. It's so... gay. Especially for you."
"Gay?" Dally parroted, smiling wide and revealing a set of what could only be described as shark teeth. "Oh, I'll show you gay."
Johnny shrieked, turning to run back up the steps as the older boy plowed after him.
-
Bar-hopping wasn't necessarily what Johnny's foremost idea of a romantic getaway was. Not that any romance had been aforementioned; he'd just assumed, considering how close they were lately, and the way Dally'd asked...
"Trust me - you'll like it when we get there," Dally pushed. Johnny shrugged, trying his best to fake a smile and not cringe as Dally's junked-up vehicle made its way down the road.
The older teen clicked his tongue disapprovingly as moisture began to fog up the windows. "Damn. I should've known better when we were out earlier - red sky in the morning..."(2)
Johnny had an odd shimmer of hope that that meant they weren't going after all, but instead Dally simply flicked on the windshield wipers. He found himself left with a sinking feeling at that; he felt bad for it, but then he also had some right to be miserable. For God's sake, a bar.
Full of angry, wet delinquents.
The feeling of sickness quelled slightly as they pulled up to the place and the shitbox entered neutral before Dally switched it off. Apparently, the car ride had been no better than a seeping pound of salt to the wound on Johnny's anxiety.
The strong, impending pit actually continued to shallow as they escaped the rain to the warmly lit interior of the bar, the sounds of noise congenial enough to put a stopper on most people's blind terror. The little brunette was still considering the easiness of the situation when a particularly clocked man lumbered over, yelping, "Houston!"
"It's Dallas, Timmy. Or did you forget that in the span of four days?"
The tall, curly-haired man frowned (though it was more of a drunken pout) at him.
"Oh, come on," he snorted, sounding for the moment sober. "I think it was longer than four days."
"Weeks, maybe!" another man piped up, "Months!"
"Fuck you," Dallas said crossly. "And your mother."
Tim put his hands together in mock-prayer. "And also with you," he said in a spooky voice.
Clearly already bored with the visitors, he wandered back towards the hustle-and-bustle, where a crowd was forming around a Southern-born man exclaiming in a loud and thickly-accented voice for all to hear. Tim was among those laughing the hardest. Dallas smiled fondly.
"Y'see, Johnny," he said, "this isn't just any bar."
He ordered two beers from the seedy-looking barkeep, only to end up changing it to a beer and a Coke at the look issued to him by Johnny. Dally slipped into a booth with him, face unusually slack. He looked relaxed.
"For eleven years," he began again, startling the second party (who hadn't been expecting it) slightly, "this's been my home away from home."
Johnny shrank at the thought, considering the fact that Dally had been only seven that long ago. Though from what he'd seen thus far, it couldn't be as bad as it sounded - the atmosphere here was friendlier than one would expect.
So he relaxed a little, even drinking a few shots after some ribbing from Dallas. Of course he trusted him; this was, after all, Dally.
"I don't believe I properly introduced you before," Johnny's subject of hero-worship proclaimed, tugging him over to a seat at the bar. The curly-haired man from before winked at him, an even drunker blonde Texan he'd seen (or rather heard) earlier practically draped over his left half.
Dally indicated the brunette. "Johnny? Tim Shepard," he nudged the half-dead man, causing a light groan to escape him, "and Buck."
The blonde bobbed his head slightly, eyelids drooping. "Much 'bliged," he mumbled, voice sounding heavier cloaked in his Southern bequest now that he was drunk.
Dallas, who had been irately tapping his fingers and chewing his lip, decided, "Hey, I'm going to get a few more drinks. Hang here, okay?" He directed that last bit to Johnny, who reluctantly sat back in his seat.
Dally left their group humming something that sounded suspiciously like Strawberry Fields Forever. Which in itself was odd, seeing as Dally didn't seem at all like a Beatles' fan to Johnny. Tim ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, eyebrows scrunched together.
"Kid's worried about something," he stated.
Johnny glanced at him curiously, wondering out loud, "How can you tell?"
Tim looked thoughtful. "You don't know? No, I suppose you don't. He's not exactly the open type."
Buck rubbed his head against Tim's shoulder, mumbling something that sounded like, "Why don't you go to church?", and ultimately severed the mood.
Tim tried to regain composure, shifting in a way that was meant to be inconspicuous in moving the other man into a more comfortable position. Instead, Buck fell into his lap. Johnny looked quickly away.
"Y'see," Tim attempted, "when something's eating Houston, he has a habit of singing Beatles' songs. Maybe they're meant to calm him, but from what I've seen they usually make him worse - real agitated. Then again, you never really know." Tim stared at something unseen off to the side. "I always thought he hated them."
A while later Dally returned with the drinks, his jaw clenched and his eyes wary. Johnny tried not to act like he noticed. He smiled and said tacitly, "Thank you," hoping to cheer him up a bit.
The music dulled to a staticky mess as someone fiddled with the radio. Then, without warning, a nearly ancient Hank Williams song filled the room, causing most of its occupants to groan. Buck stirred before sitting up, quite swiftly having become awake.
"Don't you change it! I love this song!"
Johnny watched, barely stifling a guffaw as Tim was dragged onto the open floor. Dally released a loud breath.
"Ah, jeez. Those two..."
He shook his head, guzzling his drink. Johnny frowned.
"I personally like your friends," he said, deliberately pronouncing the last word. Dallas snorted.
"Yeah? What if I told that nice Tim guy was an accent-o-phile? Better keep your Jersey twang hidden from him or he might molest you - I learned that the hard way." He grinned, either amused with himself or the memory that'd been unearthed. "And Buck? Well, he's from Texas. The powers that be know he can't be trusted."
Johnny rolled his eyes but couldn't help but let a smirk peek through. Dally's eyes flashed with something unreadable as he raised his glass, smile triumphant.
"To us."
-
In a blur of heavy bodies and the smell of alcohol they fell together, laughing, into a room where the pounding music was muffled and easier on their headaches.
Outside, the blaring ragtime abruptly faded out and then in, instrumentals having changed to funkadelic strums and pure lyrical nonsense. Dally's expression turned to one of unease; Johnny, despite his current inebriation, noticed.
Gently, he pulled Dally closer, leaning his cheek against his chest. "Why do the Beatles make you such a bundle of nerves? Aren't they usually a happy band?"
Dally ran his fingers through the smaller boy's hair, rocking back and forth on his heels. Together they moved, and only then he spoke.
"A lot of... bad men used to listen to them."
Johnny hummed against him, starting to pull him to the lone couch at the back of the room. They began to kiss, nearly tripping over their own heels as they made way to their final destination.
"Dallas - oh God, please - M-make love to me..."
And that was where everything came to a screeching halt.
Dally closed his eyes." Johnny... you don't really want this."
"I-I do," he murmured into the front of the blonde's shirt. He was already drifting off.
"You're drunk."
He was quiet.
"But I've wanted this for ages."
Dally sighed, slowly detaching the hands that were wrapped so possessively about his neck.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just can't."
He left him there to feel stupid and rejected, before Johnny finally reentered the bar and moved himself to an opposite corner. The bartender let him order drinks despite his apparent age, but he guessed that was because he was with Dallas. And because he remembered he was riding on his coattails, he drank deeper.
Hours later Dally would retrieve him from that very same spot, saying softly something that sounded like, "Let's get you home..."
And though he wouldn't realize until much later, Johnny would remember in the vague backdrop someone humming Hey Jude.
-
"Get rhythm... When you get the blues, c'mon get rhythm... When you get the blues..."
Water cascaded down the windshield in a blinding torrent, wipers fighting with it in a battle that seemed lost. Beside him in the passenger's seat, Johnny yawned and giggled.
"Izzat Johnny Cash? I love him! I feel sorry for the boy named Sue... But isn't Ponyboy worse?"
"Jeez, kid, I'm sorry," Dally whispered haltingly, ignoring the incoherent babble. "I shouldn't have taken you there..."
How fucking irresponsible, he thought bitterly, glaring straight ahead. But then, when exactly was it that he became the responsible adult?
He hoped to God or whatever power that may or may not be that he wouldn't get pulled over.
-
They got home at one in the morning to find Mrs. Cade dutifully guarding the door. Dally got out of the car, carrying the inebriated Johnny in his arms. She met them halfway and took over, taking his small body the rest of the way. All the while, her face was stony, her eyes stormy. She didn't say a word; she merely set her jaw firm to show she meant business.
As soon as she ascended the porch steps, Dallas drove off.
(1) We're reading The Raven, and I learned a new word so I decided to use it - "crimson countenance" basically means "red faced". Sorry if I confused anyone, but romances include lots of blushing, and I wanted to try something new.
(2) "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning" - an old phrase my mother uses quite often that supposedly warns when it's going to rain.
(Fun Fact!) Also, despite the fact that I hate Johnny Cash, this is the second fic where I've made a reference to him.