A/N: I know, I know. Long time, again. Please don't give up on me- I've already got the next chapter drafted so it shouldn't be so long between updates. I'm trying, but things keep coming up (a.k.a. procrastinated homework) that don't allow me to update when I'd like to. If there's anything you'd like to see happen in this fic, let me know and I'll see if I can work it in!
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Johnny and Darry were alone in the house, giving Johnny a slight sense of discomfort. He was never uneasy when he was in the Curtis house; it must have been a whole five degrees warmer than his house, which might have been caused by the door never being left open after drunken arguments, or it might have just been caused by the warmth the residents let off, rather than the cold felt around his own parents. The doors didn't squeak, the milk didn't have an old, musty taste to it. The kitchen was clean; no dirty dishes would sit in the sink for more than two hours after a meal. The windows were all intact, and there was an actual concrete path leading up to the house, rather than worn dirt which was the usual on this side of the town. The couch was more comfortable; Johnny was sitting on it, looking curiously at Darry who was sitting in the chair opposite him.

"You stay away from those boys, Johnny Cade, they're no good," was what Darry said, looking completely serious. Johnny thought it was a joke for a minute; Darry didn't talk to him much, and when he did, Johnny had been left with the impression that he looked for the good in people rather than the bad. He smiled briefly at the thought that maybe he'd be able to find something good about his parents. The smile faded as memories of the arguments came to his mind, suffocating any good thoughts.

"Maybe when you're older," Darry continued, "You'll be able to be friends with people like that. Right now, you stay away from them, or there will be trouble."

"What's the matter with them?" Johnny asked.

"They don't like kids like us."

"Why don't they like kids like us?" Johnny pressed, confused over what Darry was talking about. Sure, kids didn't like kids, but why would a whole car full of teens not like

someone much younger than them that they had never met?

"They just don't, Johnny."

He was quiet for a minute, looking at the ground. What was the difference between him and them?

"You don't like them?" Johnny asked, sure he had seen him with the same kinds of kids during breaks in class.

"I don't not like them, and I don't like them, but I'm not you and they don't like you," he answered, not wanting to get into an entire speech on the difference of intelligence and appearance, and how much of a difference it made to some.

"Is it because they're rich and we're not?" Johnny asked, remembering the nice mustang, then remembering his parents beat up black old car that's brand couldn't even be distinguished anymore; half the time it didn't even work, which left his parents cursing while looking for another way to get around since they couldn't pay for it to be fixed.

"It ain't only that, Johnny. They're rich and we're not, and they think they're better than us, but we don't think they are, and they think they dress nicer and we don't like the way they dress and it just doesn't work out." Darry sounded a little agitated, and Johnny had never heard it in his voice before.

That didn't make much sense to Johnny; Darry was the nicest dressed boy on this side of town. He didn't even dress like the rich kids, though he dressed better than the poor kids. But Darry had said they didn't get along… He spent the next few minutes trying to figure out why Darry didn't like them or didn't not like them, and whether it made a difference how Darry dressed.

After a lull in the conversation, Johnny stood up and ground the toe of his shoe into the carpet nervously. He wasn't used to being alone with Darry and he couldn't quite figure the guy out. Darry was like a mix of everyone he had ever met with a bit of something unreal to him that made him more intimidating than anyone else.

"Well," he said, watching as Darry raised his head to look away from the spot on the wall he had been contently staring at. "I guess I'll go home…"

"I'll go with you, so if them Soc's come back…" Darry told him, standing up and walking towards the door.

"You don't have to come!" Johnny said, but before he could leave or keep Darry home, they were out the door walking down the street

If his parents were home and Darry went to the door with him, would he hear them shouting? Johnny wasn't sure if Darry would still think of him as almost being a friend if he knew that his parents shouted at him and each other all the time; after all, Darry was a good person but his parents never shouted. Johnny's parents shouted all the time, so he wasn't sure what that made him.

As they neared the house, he could hear his parents shouting- maybe it was because his parents always shouted, so he was used to the noise, and he knew it would be there so he was listening for it- but Darry didn't seem to notice it. He just kept on walking as if there weren't shouts of profanity wafting down the street. A cat jumped and ran across the sidewalk from its hiding place in the shadows as they walked by.

"Which one's yours, Johnny?" Darry asked as they neared his house and it was no longer ignorable that there was screaming going on inside Number 13.

"That one," Johnny said, pointing to his house, and moving onto the driveway. "Thanks for walking me, Darry," he mumbled quietly.

Darry quickly glanced up to the broken upstairs window, and then down to the worn dirt path leading up to the door, which looked ready to fall off the hinges. He made a slight face as a particularly long line of words he'd get a whooping if he said became audible, then glanced at Johnny, not able to believe that the quiet spoken, shy boy actually lived there. A second after they made eye contact, a slam resounded as the door Johnny had just dashed to shut.

"No problem, Johnny," he said to the now empty spot where Johnny had been moments before.