Disclaimer: I don't own; I borrow with the odd exception, and you know what those exceptions are.
Author's Note: Flames are welcome! Again, this isn't supposed to be taken seriously. A very big thanks goes out to alsonny for practically spoon-feeding me a plot for this shit storm. Take it for what it is, ladies and gents.

XX

Feb. 1964

By the time Janice had cooled off enough to come back into the diner and sit her ass down, Two-Bit had made himself right at home in her seat, with his head down on the table as he muttered to himself. Half of me was wondering how in the hell he'd gotten this far out, but the other half was glad for someone else's company.

Janice had this dumb smile on her face that had me rolling my eyes and sinking down in my seat. She could be embarrassing as hell sometimes, but fuck if I was about to open my big mouth about it. She'd sooner have me swallowing my teeth than letting me talk about her in any way that wasn't positive. Her self-esteem was so fucking low that I was honestly disgusted by it. Maybe all broads were like that, I didn't know. But it pissed me off, especially since she couldn't take a joke to save her pathetic life. She tried to bullshit me into thinking that I was the same way, saying that it ran in the family, same as all our other unpleasant qualities seemed to. The only thing we agreed on was that it was all our dad's fault; he was what we believed to be the root of all fucking evil. Everything that went wrong got blamed on him, which seemed completely fair in my mind.

I watched Janice push Two-Bit over and sit down. The fog was really coming in thick. Looking out the window, I couldn't see into the parking lot. It was a wonder she'd gotten herself and the car back in one piece. She didn't like me driving when the weather got like this. Said I'd run myself right off the road and kill myself, but I knew better. She liked toting me around, 'cause I guess it made her feel needed and gave her an excuse to get the hell out of the house. Truthfully, sometimes I couldn't stand to be around her, just because she looked so much like our dad. Her temper was every bit as bad as his on a good day, and while I knew she wouldn't even dream of doing half the things that our dad had done to me, I couldn't help but be guarded.

It wasn't all the time, mostly just when I got her real ticked off and she started hollerin' at me. She didn't do it all that much; she'd rather talk things out, which was pretty admirable, considering both our parents had a set of lungs on them that they used to their full advantage. And it wasn't like I was scared of Jan, or I didn't think I was, anyways. She wouldn't lay a fucking hand on me, and if she did, I'd have no problem snapping her twiggy little arm in half. It was the resemblance to Mack that got me and that was all.

I pressed my tongue against the inside of my cheek and narrowed my eyes at Janice. "Where the fuck did you go?"

She reluctantly turned her attention toward me. "If I wanted you to know, I'd've brought you with me, don't you think?"

"'Scuse me for bein' concerned," I muttered, mostly to myself, as I stared down at my hands.

She made me feel like a little boy sometimes, and not just because I was her younger brother. There was little to no respect on her end. She treated me as if I was some kind of fucking wild animal that needed to be reminded of who owned it, and I was getting sick and tired of it. If she wasn't ignoring me, which sometimes I thought I preferred, then she was talking down to me and making me feel like I wasn't worth a damn thing.

"That's cute, Dallas," she said, rolling her eyes as she tried to prop Two-Bit up against the window, instead of slumping over on her, like he was trying to do. "Save your concern for someone who wants it."

I fumbled with my pack of smokes as she wiped the drool of his face. He was pretty fucking sauced and kept mumbling about something neither me nor Janice could figure out. The question on both our minds was how in the fuck he'd gotten his drunk ass all the way out to Cosmo's without reeling and passing out in some back alley. Tricks of the trade, he liked to say, as if it were all some big accomplishment that he was proud of.

"Leave him alone, Janice." I lit a smoke and passed the pack off to her. "You ain't his fuckin' mommy. He can wipe the spit off his own face."

She pulled a smoke out of the pack and snatched the lighter from me. "Unlike you, I ain't a lousy friend." She lit her smoke and chucked the lighter at me hard. "I give a hang about somebody other than myself."

That was a bunch of bullshit if I'd ever heard it. She was one of the most selfish people I'd ever had the displeasure of being related to. Every single thing that she did had some kind of a selfish intent behind it. A lot of people got sucked into thinking that she was nice as fucking pie and didn't believe me when I tried to tell them different, which was fine with me. They were only fucking themselves over, and if they wanted to be that ignorant when the truth was being placed right in front of them, then I guessed that they deserved it.

"Where the fuck is the change from that dollar I left here?"

Janice didn't go around dropping the f-bomb very often or get bent out of shape over money. I made a face at her and wondered if something was up that she wasn't telling me. It wouldn't have surprised me none; she was harder to read than books on Greek Mythology. If she didn't tell me what was going on with her, then I would never have any idea, and she liked it that way a lot of the time. Her logic was that if she could pretend that everything was alright for long enough, then sooner or later, she was bound to believe herself.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out what was left of her money. She sighed heavily and muttered something about Betty being a dumb little bitch before shaking her head and telling me to just keep it. Sometimes she was so up and down that I couldn't keep up.

"Sit back and enjoy your cig, Jan," I told her tightly. "You're gonna burn it down to the fucking filter."

"Who cares?" She stuck the smoke between her lips and took a hard drag as she gave Two-Bit a shake. "We oughta get him someplace he can sleep this off, huh?"

That usually meant we were going to end up at Buck's. I nodded and stubbed out what was left of my cigarette in the little ashtray at the end of the table. "Yeah."

XX

Everything was grey. Janice looked at me and pressed her lips together tightly as she let the car idle in Buck's driveway.

"It's just fog, Dallas," she told me, trying to find a radio station that came in clear, but I think that she felt it, too. Her eyebrows were pinched together and she looked stiff. "Should we leave him here?"

Two-Bit hadn't lasted five minutes in the back of the car before he'd passed out. I turned around to look at him and scowled. He was a slobbering mess, and I hoped he drowned in his own spit so I wouldn't have to put up with the burden of being his friend. It was times like these that made me question why I put up with him.

"I reckon the car is just as good as any other place," I said and turned back around. "Besides, how in the fuck are we supposed to get him up the stairs?"

She nodded and finally cut the engine. The silence seemed to hit me from all sides, making the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end all at once. I wasn't claustrophobic, but I felt like the car was starting to condense around me, and the fog was pushing against the glass, trying to get at me. I wiped my hands along my jeans and shot Janice a look.

"Quit buggin' out, would you?" She was fingering through the change in the ashtray. "You're acting like a little girl."

I pushed open the car door and frowned. "Shut the fuck up, Janice."

She snorted as she crawled out of the car slowly and shook her head. "Lock your door behind you, huh?"

There wasn't anything in Buck's car worth stealing, except maybe Two-Bit, but I did what she said and followed her into the roadhouse. It seemed like everybody and their fucking dog was out tonight, and I could just see the disgust on Janice's face. She hated Buck's almost as much as she hated being home, but it was the only place where she could get a stiff drink without anybody trying to give her a hard time about it. And for a lot of us, it was somewhere safe to go at the end of the day. I wasn't stupid or naive; I knew most everyone was shacking up here because they didn't have no place else to go. Buck's was some kind of a goddamn sanctuary.

I sat down at the bar and flagged down Buck. He looked like he was having one hell of a night. Good help was hard for him to find, since he was about as cheap as I reckoned someone could get. I could see his brother milling around at the other side of the bar, but he was as useless as he was stupid.

"Janice here?"

I scratched the back of my neck and sneered at him. "What the fuck is it to you?"

"I've been lookin' for her all week, and she knows that," he told me, but I wasn't really listening.

"Guess that means she's been avoiding you, don't it?" I said, lighting myself a smoke. "Get me a rum and coke, instead of standin' there like an idiot."

He was looking for Janice because there was some rodeo coming up. She had been riding his ponies for the last few years and hadn't lost a single race. That was the only reason he put up with her being arrogant and dropping off the face of the earth every time one came up. She liked to save all of the planning until the very last minute, and it was causing his hair to turn grey prematurely. I remembered there being times when she had to pack up and ship out the night before or the day of a race. She said that the more she had to plan it out the less interest she had in it.

I tapped my ashes off to the side as she sat down beside me. It seemed like I couldn't go anywhere or do anything without her being right there. She leaned into me a bit and put a hand on my shoulder, watching Buck.

"He say anything?"

"Just that he's been lookin' for your ass for damn near a week now," I told her, shrugging her off. "But you knew that."

She laughed to herself and nodded. "It's about that time, ain't it?"

"Yeup." I handed my smoke off to her. "Better bust out them spurs and make Buck his fuckin' money."

She grinned, and the smoke filtered through her teeth and out her nose. "So long as he doesn't smile, we'll be fine."

Buck came back with my drink and grumbled something that got lost in all the noise when he saw Janice.

"Remind me again why I put up with you." He slammed a beer down in front of her. "And don't bat your lashes at me and tell me it's 'cause you're pretty."

"Well, then I really ain't got no idea." She capped her beer on the bar and rubbed her nose on her sleeve.

I could tell she wasn't in the mood to deal with his bullshit, and neither was I. All three of us knew how this was going to end, so everything leading up to it was pretty fucking pointless. But I sat there and sipped on my drink, figuring it best to let them get their shit sorted out before someone's head got taken off.

Buck sucked his tongue over his teeth and leaned against the bar. "If you weren't an asset to my business, Janice, I'd have absolutely no tolerance for this."

"But here's the thing." She put her beer down and clasped her hands together in front of her. "I am an asset, and I know this. And I also know that I can get away with anything and everything, simply because you need me."

She fixed him with a cheesy grin and patted his arm. If anybody knew how to play the game of manipulation, it was her. Sometimes I hated her for how easy she made it look. She could con our mom and dad into just about anything, which was really saying something. I used to think it was favouritism, but I learned pretty damn quickly that if I said the right things, I could get just about anything I wanted out of just about anybody.

I nudged Janice lightly. "Just ask him when your goddamn rodeo is, so I ain't gotta look at his ugly mug no more."

She glowered at me, but did what I told her, for once in her life. "When's my rodeo, Buck-O?"

"Tomorrow mornin'," he said.

"You ain't kiddin'?" She scratched at her cheek. "Who's bringin' coffee?"

Buck rolled his eyes dismissively and left to go help someone else. I bit down on my lip, figuring my best bet was to go with Janice in the morning. She wouldn't like it, but fuck if I was about to spend the day sitting around with my thumb up my ass. Two-Bit would be nursing one hell of a hangover, and I wasn't going home alone. I knew the Curtises wouldn't be up to much of anything, but I didn't feel like bumming around their house and taking up space.

I slipped off my stool, drink in hand, and tugged at Jan's sleeve. She sighed and trailed me up the stairs, running her fingers along the walls as she hummed the tune to the song that was reverberating through the entire house.

"You got the key, Jan?" I asked as I patted down my pockets with my free hand.

She yawned and waggled it in front of my face, before she unlocked the door and pushed her way inside. "Can I borrow some sweatpants?"

I finished off my drink and pointed over at the closet. "I think I'm gonna come with you and Buck tomorrow morning."

"Over my dead body," she said, rolling her shoulders. "Now go get cleaned up before bed."

She threw some clean clothes at me and nodded her head toward the bathroom. I didn't want to shower or brush my teeth; it was late and my head hurt. But I knew I'd feel every bump and bruise in the morning if I didn't. I closed the window and the blinds, hoping like hell the fog let up by the time I had to be up. Fog usually meant storms. There wasn't anything I hated more.

"I'm coming with y'all tomorrow." I threw the clothes on the dresser and flopped down on the bed. "There ain't no way in hell I'm goin' home or bummin' around anywhere."

"Nobody said you had to do either of those things," she told me, pulling on a pair of sweats. "Get your boots off the damn bed."

I groaned and tried to make an attempt at kicking them off. She got sick of watching me struggle and came around the bed to pull them off, and the look on her face was priceless.

"Here, Princess," she jeered, holding them out towards me. "Do somethin' with those."

I smacked them out of her hands. "Consider something done."

She crawled into bed as I lit up my last smoke and placed the ashtray from the nightstand between us. The rain started then, just a light tapping on the roof to let us know that it was there. It was going to get worse. Jan knew this just as well as I did, and she unfolded the blanket from the edge of the bed before throwing it over me.

"Light or telly tonight, Dal?" she asked.

"The light's fine, Jan," I said and handed her my smoke.

She took it and looked at me a minute. "If you're up early and swear on Ma's grave you ain't gonna get in mine or Buck's way, I'll let you come tomorrow."

"Just when in the fuck have I ever got in your way?"

She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows at me as she took a drag and passed my smoke back to. "Just keep your mouth shut and pretend like you ain't there."

I had to roll my eyes, because how many times had I heard that in my life? Be seen and not heard. I had the routine down to a fucking T by now. It was the only reason I'd survived this long, living in the same house as our dad.

"You should teach me somethin' tomorrow, Jan," I said quietly, staring at the ceiling.

"Goodnight, Dallas." She yawned and rolled over. "Love you."

"Yeah."

I stubbed out the last half of my smoke, put the ashtray back on the nightstand, and pulled the blanket up under my chin. Sometimes I wasn't sure if I loved her back. Nobody could deny that she did one hell of a lot for me, but I had to wonder if it was because she wanted to, or if it was because she felt like she was under some kind of an obligation. I hated to think that I was what was holding her back from going off and doing something with her life.

So it was there in the room that I rented from Buck that I decided it was time I distanced myself from Janice. That way if she did leave, like most people seemed to, it wouldn't hurt so bad.

XX

PS: Reviews would be lovely. ;)