Disclaimer: I don't own; I borrow with the odd exceptions.
A/N: Flames are welcome. Sorry for how ridiculously long it took to update. Of course I would like to thank Cheap Indifference and everybody else who helped me through this chapter. See mistakes? That's great. Point them out. Reviews would be lovely, as per usual.

Feb. 1964

The worst thing about Janice getting sick of me was that I should have seen it coming. I couldn't stand her any more than she could stand me. But she'd given me reason. She was selfish and whiny and had to make everything about her, because in her narrow-minded version of the world, there wasn't room for anybody else. She acted as if she was doing everybody one giant favor simply by breathing; and it was all about what the world could offer Janice fucking Annalisse.

At least the weather was holding out well enough. I looked up at the chain link fence and wasn't surprised she was the reason seven feet of wrought iron stood between me and a nice warm car. It seemed a little ass-backwards, if you asked me. If she was any sort of a sister, she'd be in my face with a last of all the reason I shouldn't run around breaking laws. The only useful sort of advice she'd ever given me was don't get caught, as if I really gave a flying fuck. It was the morale of it all, the very basic principle in that she was a detriment to me and any chance I had of coming out of this inconvenient little thing I called life alright.

Two-Bit handed his smoke off to me. It was my last one.

"Your sister's got a part missing, don't she?" he asked, leaning up against the fence and knowing I wasn't in a hurry to get back to the car.

"Gets it from our dad," I told him and paused long enough to take a drag. "They're both fucking batshit."

He kind of hummed from somewhere in his throat, as if he understood that it was cause for concern, while I flicked the end of the cig off into the grass. Our dad's side of the family wasn't exactly what I liked to call mentally fit. I had a cousin on his side that needed to be put away. She wasn't a functionable person, and I almost felt bad for her. Jo hadn't been too bad when we were younger, but now she was a threat to anybody unfortunate enough to be within ten yards of her, somebody who shouldn't have been allowed out of the house on her own. My mom hadn't let me or Jan near my dad's side in years, probably because she was afraid some of the crazy had slipped into our gene pool, or maybe it was that she knew.

It explained why Janice acted the way she did. I guessed when compared to our cousin, she wasn't all that bad yet, but hell if she wasn't on her way. Sometimes I still saw Jo. She lived out in Windrixville, and I was willing to bet that was where Janice took off to whenever she picked up and left. I could only handle Jo so much and be around her for so long, otherwise she started playing the kind of head games that made me realize there was something not quite right with myself either. She reminded me that I was Mack's kid and took after him in more ways than I though. Or maybe, like my mom, I knew but refused to acknowledge it; and maybe Janice wasn't completely blowing it out her ass when she tried to blame things on running in the family.

Two-Bit shouldered me and nodded a hole in the bottom of the fence like it was the eighth wonder of the world or something. "Reckon we can fit through that?" He peeled some of the fencing back and shot me a look, his nose wrinkled. "Or maybe just you…"

I snickered at him and crouched down in to the dirt. It was damp and smelled like rain. "Lay off the goddamn cake then," I said, squeezing my way through the opening. "You're gettin' soft around the middle."

"The ladies love it," he told me, giving me this ear-to-ear grin as I stood up.

"Ladies?"

"Kathy," he corrected himself, not looking the least bit guilty. "Kathy loves it, and so does your mom."

I stopped brushing the dirt off myself and narrowed my eyes at him. "Bring your ass over here and say that again."

He looped his fingers though the chain link and leaned forward, using it to hold himself up. The smile he had on his face made my spine crawl. "Oh yeah?" he challenged. "And what?"

"Just see what happens."

He made this tsking sound through his teeth and shook his head as if he expected more from me. "That all you got?"

"It's all I need."

"You know…" he trailed off and rattled the fence. "Maybe I oughta start talkin' about your sister, then."

"You wanna talk sisters, Two-Bit?" I smacked the fence against his face and laughed. "The things I would do to Jane…"

He rubbed his nose and made a face. "Alright, fair enough." He was still fucking smiling. "But I'd still kill to get under your mom's skirt, or even just cop a feel…"

"Fuck you."

Janice parked in a real lousy spot. She handed me the keys and a beer and settled back against the front of the car. James Dean was on the screen, and I knew she was crazy about him, even though he'd been dead for nine years. She'd made me watch that Rebel Without A Cause movie about a hundred times and always cried at the end, even though she knew what was coming. I didn't think he was the best actor in the world, but then, what the hell did I really know about movies? They were Janice's thing; I couldn't sit still long enough to see one through to the end.

Steve passed his smoke off to Janice and took a sip of his beer, watching a Mustang pull into a slot. I didn't know why the hell he was here. He and Soda were supposed to be on some double-date, but I didn't see hear or tails of Soda or the girls.

"If I see one more fuckin' Mustang or Corvair pull in, I swear to God…" He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and hucked his bottle off over his shoulder. "Ain't they got their own goddamned drive-in?"

"'Course they do, but that's what you get with these fuckin' in-between places." I scratched my jaw and twirled the key ring around my finger. "Where's that broad of yours, huh? She finally run out on you?"

"Shit, that'll be the day." He laughed as if he really didn't think it could ever happen. "Soda and Sandy ain't been seein' eye-to-eye lately and thought it best to cool it for a bit. Soda went off with Jane to get popcorn or whatever."

That was the problem with people who knew they were good-looking, like Soda and his broad Sandy. That was about all they could ever agree on, their looks, and didn't care about the rest.

Two-Bit shoved me over and snatched the beer out of my hands. "Tell Stevie what happened in gym last Friday, man." He shook my beer and handed it back as if he really expected me to just go on and open it.

"You know that Adderson kid?" I asked, wanting to crack him over the head with the bottle. "Dad's got some real big name in oil…"

Steve snickered. "Yeah, what of him?"

"Guy's a queer if I ever saw one," I said, watching him screw his face up and knowing he'd already heard enough.

Janice wrinkled her nose and laughed as if it was particularly funny. "Ew." She licked her lips and looked around. "Christ, I hope somebody heard that. Wouldn't that be something?"

I shrugged and rubbed my face, not caring what it was or what it wasn't. The asshole deserved everything he got and worse, queerness aside. Him and that friend of his, Bob what's-his-fuck, were a couple of real pricks that needed to have their skulls bashed in.

"What the hell's that gotta do with gym class?" Steve asked, looking at me weird.

"Forget it."

"Forget it?" Two-Bit gawked at me and thumbed at his nose. "Caught him lookin' at Dal like he wanted to fuckin'…" he trailed off and rethought what he was about to say. "Anyways, I would've beat the goddamn faggot out of him."

"So what stopped you?" Jane had her arms full with a tub of popcorn and a few drinks, and she handed me one as she cocked an eyebrow at her brother. "I can't believe you're still on about that—it was over a week ago."

He snatched the popcorn from her and grinned. "You know how that shit's contagious, Jane," he said, and walked around to the back of the car. He pulled out a beer for Soda and tossed it to him. "How in God's name do you expect me to get Dal's mom in bed if I turn into a queer?"

Jane snorted at him and rolled her eyes, sitting beside me. She reached into the tub when Two-Bit came back around and cradled a handful against her stomach that she let me pick at. "Annie has standards," she snapped back. "And I didn't buy that for you to fill your own gob with, Two-Bit, so share."

"I'm pretty sure you can't just turn into a queer," Janice said and looked over at me like I was supposed to know all about it. "It's not like the flu—you're not going to catch it, just because you touched the same doorknob as one."

"You're gonna get killed talkin' like that." I snatched the bucket from Two-Bit and sighed. "It's a fuckin' disease, Janice, same as tuberculosis and polio, except it's in the brain."

Janice crammed her hand into the popcorn and gave me this know-it-all look she always did whenever she was about to make me eat my words. "Riddle me this, then, smart-ass." She stopped to stuff her face and dig out a cig. "You ever known a brain disease to be contagious?"

"Well, you caught it from somebody, didn't you?"

She cuffed me upside the head and offered me a smoke. "You know what I always say." She smiled. "Runs in the family."

There was that excuse again. I clutched the keys in my hand and let the metal cut into my palm, wondering if she threw it around just to be saying something, or if she really did think that everything that was wrong with her ran in the family. If that was the case, then I should've been every bit as screwed up as she was. I knew I had my issues, same as everyone else, but they were nowhere near as bad as hers. For as much as I hated her, she had to know she wasn't completely alone in the world. Above everything else, she was my sister, and family didn't turn their noses at family, no matter what was wrong with them. They were all you came into the world with, and in the end, they were all you left with. Friends came and friends went; family and death were the only two sure things in life.

I didn't expect Janice's thinking to be anywhere near the same lines as mine. She looked out for herself and expected everyone to do the same. If she didn't need nobody, then nobody needed her, and that was the way she liked it, which was probably the biggest bunch of bullshit I'd ever heard.

"Anybody got a light?" I asked, letting the smoke dangle from my mouth.

Steve flicked his lighter open for me. "You want real entertainment, you should hear what Soda's got to say about your mom." He smacked Soda in the chest with this dopey grin on his face like he thought whatever Soda had to say was either going to be genuinely funny, or genuinely piss me off.

"She's a real fine piece of ass, Dal," Soda told me, and he gave me look like I was supposed to agree with him. I wanted to wipe the fucking smile right off his pretty-boy face. "I'd give Steve's left nut to fuck her."

"Why mine?"

"Because, if I'm going to sleep with her, I kinda need both mine, dummy."

Jane crushed her cup in her hand. "Both of you need to quit acting like pigs." She slid off the hood and threw the cup at Soda's feet, muttering about how she didn't expect him to act like such a disrespectful shit the way Steve and her brother did.

I had to agree with her. It was no secret that Soda could say some foul things when he wanted to, but of all people, I thought he knew where to draw the line.

And maybe that was why I told him his girlfriend was a good-for-nothing slut and that he wouldn't know how to use his dick even if she came up and sat herself on it, so what where either of his nuts really worth?

Jane came out of the bathroom wiping her hands on her skirt. "You know what really gets me?" she asked and sucked her tongue over her teeth. "That Janice just sits there and lets them all say whatever they want about your mom."

I scratched the back of my neck, leaning up against the wall. "Might think they're joking," I said. "Maybe."

She raised an eyebrow at me and crossed her arms. "Nobody should be joking about anybody's mom." Her face clouded over. "Especially after the shape yours was in tonight, and if my brother was any kind of friend, he'd tell Steve and Soda where to go."

Admittedly, she had a point. Even if Soda and Steve had no idea what was going on, he did, and while I didn't expect him to say anything, I thought he would've had the decency—or even the common sense—to keep his mouth shut. But I guessed that some days a little respect was just too much to ask for from some people.

"I don't think your brother really knows what to do, Jane," I told her, looking over her shoulder. I could still see the car from where we were. It was an eyesore compared to the onslaught of freshly painted, hot-off-the-assembly-line cars with their new tires and engines that just purred.

She sighed because she knew I was right. If Two-Bit wasn't making a big joke out of everything, then he didn't know what to do with himself. It was his defense mechanism, what he did when a situation was too far out of his control. Of course he got angry, the same way all of us did, he just handled it better, or didn't let it show as much, probably because he felt he had to save face for Jane. At least me and Jan had the ability to be open with each other, but I figured it was really just some fluky family trait, since I'd never known a single Winston to be able to keep their mouth shut.

But I couldn't decide if we were better or worse off. Sure, we took things more seriously, but wasn't that just our problem? It was almost like we couldn't take a joke, or we didn't want to. I didn't know when things had gotten to that point, but I guessed that whatever sense of humor I had died along with the last piece of whatever was human inside Mack.

I spat off to the side, watching as my sister came toward us. She looked like she was about to rip me in half. It was like no matter what happened, I was the one that was always in the wrong, as far as she was concerned. Everybody had a goddamned scapegoat, didn't they?

"That was a really nasty thing to say, Dallas," she bit, giving my shoulder a shove and completely ignoring Jane. "You don't call your friend's girlfriend a good-for-nothing whore."

I put both my hands up to stop her from shoving at me. She'd never hit me with a closed fist, always all pushes and bumps. "And it's okay for him to talk about how he wants to fuck our mom, Janice?" I smacked her hands away when she went to push me again. "That's Mom, not some fucking slut for my buddies to shack up with for the night."

If it'd been Sylvia, I would've let them talk themselves blue, because Sylvia deserved half the things people called her. But our mom wasn't a two-timing tramp that slept with all of Tulsa.

"You have to take everything so seriously, don't you?" Janice shook her head at me and rolled her eyes, and she had me by the scruff of my coat, like she was about to haul me off somewhere. "I'm not surprised, really—everything always comes back to Mom."

"Shut the fuck up," I hissed, and I didn't think I'd ever wanted to hit her so badly. "You're so fucking stupid, Janice, you make me sick." I spat at her and yanked her hand off me. "Go back to Mom—at least she fucking wants you around."

Maybe it was that I spat at her, or maybe it was that I said the one thing she didn't want to hear, but I finally drove her to the point of hitting me with a closed fist. I'd been told there was a first time for everything.