The lights coming from the restaurant are a warm red that glows in the dark: inviting, the inside clearly warm and not very busy. A light glaze of rain is falling, not enough to make Ponyboy turn the wipers on as he turns the engine off, glancing at Dallas. "C'mon. We're gonna be their last ones tonight, if we hurry it up."
"Yeah, yeah," Dallas removes his hands from Ponyboy's, even though his fingers trail along his knuckles in the red glow of the restaurant. Slight pain radiates in his jaw, even though the muzzle has been off for a good half hour or so. It'll be worse in the morning; for now, though, it feels as if he's just been recovering from a bust up when he was a teenager, instead of someone almost twice that age now.
Ponyboy keeps about two paces ahead, relaxed in stride. Now that they aren't in front of anyone else or anything else where he had to be that Marshal, he's looser. The way his hips move are always a little funny to Dallas, a half gait that flows better than when he was an awkward kid just really getting familiar with his body. The boots he wears give a small click as they walk from the back heels and he wonders who Ponyboy got them from.
Instincts urging him on, Dallas overtakes him in two strides, opening the door with a half yank. That gets an exasperated look from Ponyboy that Dallas ignores, simply nudging him inside. As predicted, there's hardly anyone in here: just the cook and bare bones waitstaff, with no one sitting in the booths at all.
Ponyboy waves to them, then strides to the very back of the restaurant, half swaying as he goes. The view isn't half bad, all long legs and hair shining beneath the red and yellow lights that are much, much more favorable than the shitty ones in the station. The way being the Marshal just falls right off of him, into Ponyboy makes him so, so happy to see. It reminds him that all of this didn't have to be just one thing or the other, and that whatever this was now, it was real in a way he didn't really have precise words for.
Predictably, Ponyboy takes the side of the booth that's able to see the door. Dallas doesn't enjoy that, but he's got no choice in the matter, so he takes the opposite side, eyes entirely on Ponyboy. The lights turn his hazel eyes a little brighter, the smile on his face just as sweet as he remembered it being. "You hankering for anything in particular? Consider it all on Uncle Sam as reparations for inhumane treatment."
"I wouldn't call it enough," Dallas responds, bringing a hand up to rub at his sore jaw, the waitress coming over with the menu. She places it both in front of them, and Ponyboy orders their drinks. Dallas waits for her to leave to pick up, "If we were real square, I'd have a good three hours with you and a hotel room."
"Would you?" Ponyboy's tone isn't combative or neutral; it's surprisingly honeyed, hopeful almost. "I'm surprised you think three hours might be enough."
"We're sitting here making wishes, so why not ask for it all? Three hours, in a hotel you probably couldn't afford with just one paycheck, and some whiskey just so I can see you turn all red and get all pliant," every word he says is just as hopeful as Ponyboy's, even if it's underscored by a layer of grit, resignation that it's never going to happen.
Out of the two of them, it was Ponyboy who was liable to keep his head in the clouds, to never think of anything real. Not Dallas, always aware of how reality was, of what was and wasn't something you could grasp in your hand, of what the score was.
Not to say Ponyboy was a fool — he couldn't be, not with that star, not with the way he's here for Dallas, beneath everyone else's nose. He was smart enough to know that this night couldn't last, that there'd be questions, and that eventually, it all had to end.
For this moment though, Dallas pretends as if they're both fools when he looks at the menu, considers what he wants to eat. "Suppose it wouldn't be too bad to get a beer here, then?"
"One or two wouldn't do any more harm than anything else," Ponyboy reaches his hand halfway out, and Dallas considers taking it. "Less expensive than whisky at a hotel, though. Might taste like piss."
"Better than what we had at Buck's," comes grumbled out and that earns a laugh from Ponyboy. "Straight fuckin' pisswater, and all set to —"
"Hank Williams!" They both exclaim it the same time, and Dallas' face breaks into a smile, at how much derision they still have for that fucking bar. Ponyboy sucks at his teeth, shaking his head. "How didn't he fucking change the records? I swear, if that place were still going on, you'd be hearing those same ones now! And he's been dead for over twenty years!"
The waitress comes back with the drinks, and Dallas tells the food he wants, the alcohol, and once she's gone again, he shakes his head again. "He'd been dead for ten when we were kids. Is it still around? I only came for Shepard."
"No, burned down two years ago. Insurance fraud, no one could prove it," his straw goes right into the Coke he's ordered, "Took the money, ran. That was probably the smartest thing that he could do. S'how Tim got involved so deep."
Tipping some extra ice into his water, Dallas doesn't bother to dance around the question: "What about the Cades? They still around here?"
"Irene is," the bitterness in Ponyboy's tone isn't at all hard to miss, "John Cade, heard they had to cut him down from the rafters elsewhere cause he'd gambled almost everything else away. Didn't even get an obituary in the paper. Irene's still drinking most days, according to Katie Mathews."
"What was she doing out here tonight?" Dallas doesn't want to poke too hard at something painful, watching Ponyboy's face as he says it, the way some of the tension in his voice, and bitterness had made him a little more exhausted. "I thought she'd be around her first year of college or something?"
"Second, she's going local. Didn't want to strain her Mama," Ponyboy leans forward, putting his cheek in his palm, cocking his head at Dallas. The light overhead makes him look almost as if there's a soft neon glow to him, and Dallas' eyes flicker briefly down to look at his ears, where he remembers Ponyboy had piercings in, right before he'd left. His teeth ache, remembering how he'd liked biting at Ponyboy's earlobes when they'd been together, pressed close together at Buck's right after a turn at the rodeo together. "You don't just wanna fill up on gossip d'you, Dally? You wanna ask me something else, I know you do."
Dallas weighs his answer, thinking about those times together, about how much they've changed, and haven't. He feels his cheek pulse, some of the pain spreading. "You up for answering 'em? C'mon, kid. You know we don't have all night — rather at least pretend this is something else for a little longer," he knows it isn't like him. He also knows if he asks what's really on his mind, if they really come any closer, that this might all fall apart, whatever this is.
Silence holds for a few moments, this push and pull between what they both knew the other wanted, between Dallas wanting this illusion for a few minutes, and Ponyboy who didn't. A reversal, if only for a moment.
He understands why Ponyboy has his head in his clouds at times, why he doesn't necessarily like everything being real.
And for once, Dallas wants to be different, wants to cast aside everything for something like that, that unreality where they could get whatever they wanted. Where the shame he felt at even being found by Ponyboy like this — angry, feral, ready to beat Curly into nothing — had never happened.
He wants to grasp Ponyboy's hand and make up for lost time. Wants to go back to that time at Buck's where they were just young kids together, trying to be with each other as well as they could, despite everything, despite the death of Johnny, despite the way the world was turning on it's ear.
A radio plays in the kitchen, the song's melody heard, but not the words. It's a familiar song that Dallas knows he could croon anyday: Shall I stay? / Would it be, would it be a sin?
The sound of food sizzling over takes it for a moment. It's still just long enough for Ponyboy's expression to soften, for him to say, "Just — Can you — if we did have the time. Did you mean it? What you said?"
Dallas doesn't hesitate to answer Ponyboy. "I don't lie to you, Pone, do I? About us."
Beneath the table, Ponyboy's leg slips between Dallas' own. That's as good an answer as any, and Dallas relaxes. Ponyboy moves his hand from his chin, and carefully, he says, "Don't worry about everything tonight, Dal. Let me at least treat you — take care of you, tonight. Let's not think about what's fair, and what ain't. Just have a couple beers with me and some lo mein, okay?"
"Alright, kid," Dallas leans back in the booth, but it's him who grasps Ponyboy's hand, turning it over to look at the ring on his finger. It's that same class ring he'd gotten from Dallas all those years ago: the one he'd robbed a senior for, a gaudy gold engraved band with the ruby red jeweled center. "Your coworkers ever point out you didn't go here?"
"I don't let them get that close," Pony says, his hand a comfortable weight in Dallas' own. Now that they aren't in the car, now that they aren't in the police station, Dallas gets to keep his grip on Ponyboy in a way he wasn't able to before.
He can see those fine, pretty fingers much more up close — the way that there's a little grit beneath them that Dallas likes to think is from art that Ponyboy still does, can feel the slight callouses to his hands, and find the familiar valley of his palm that Dallas has never, ever forgotten.
By simple memory, he can feel his way down to the initiation scar that Ponyboy had received all on his own, months after Johnny had been buried. The one everyone carried in their pack who had earned it, the one that Dallas knew Ponyboy could find on him just as easy.
The silence between them doesn't feel like something either of them have to break — it's comfortable, warm in it's nature, full of all the time they'd missed between each other, all that time that had passed and hadn't, all the same.
It's a silence that Dallas thinks he could stay in forever, if he could. The radio keeps on playing faintly from the kitchen, a few word shouted that were clearly orders, and someone walks in to pick up their food. The smell of cooking food wafts through, his mouth watering, and all the while, Ponyboy doesn't interrupt, doesn't do anything except curl his hand over Dallas' hand, just enough to keep that warmness there.
He considers tugging Ponyboy's hand, dragging him to the floor to dance to the music coming out of the kitchen. They never danced sober as kids, or at least Dallas had and Ponyboy hadn't: he'd always be too shy when he was sober, too self aware of everyone else looking at him, suddenly into how he looked now, a little greaser omega who was surpassing Soda in looks. Even though he'd been spoken for, even though he could always defend himself if something went wrong, he had always been too, well, himself to dance.
A few beers after a night at the rodeo or snuck beneath Darry's nose and Dallas could get him moving in the billiards or the stables or the Dingo. They would come together, Ponyboy's face flushed, his hands all over, his mouth kissing Dallas anywhere he could whether it was just a little sway or one of those line dances that he swore he never remembered but could turn into something poetic when they danced together.
Dallas always preferred the slower dances, when Ponyboy would grasp his waist and they could just sway together. Those were times where he could reach his hand up Ponyboy's shirt to run his fingers over his newly healed scar, crooning in his ear with the music, pretending like nothing was gonna change the second Ponyboy graduated high school. Those were times where he felt they were closest, the only two people in the world dancing beneath the lights or in some dark shadow, the night seemingly forever in that spot until the music ended and they had to go up to his room or Ponyboy had to reluctantly go home.
Romance, unreality wasn't like him. In those moments though, when Ponyboy was a little drunk and Dallas maybe a bit buzzed, it felt like something he could accept. Something that felt a little like those movies that Ponyboy was obsessed with and Dallas didn't care too much about.
That's what this night feels like, he realizes as he hums a little with the music. It feels like one of those nights, where it stretched on forever for just a little bit, just for them.
It's a good moment, a good night to spend it in this silence, in each other's company. Ponyboy doesn't let go of his hand, his eyes running over Dallas' own, his expression soft in his face. How he's retained some of that softness after everything, Dallas doesn't know.
There's no need to ask right now. No need to delve. Only moments like this, hand in hand, Ponyboy's legs between his, the music going on and on.
The beers come out the same time as the rest of the food, with some apologies exchanged as they're placed on the table. Chinese food in Oklahoma wasn't Chinese food in New York, as far as Dallas was concerned. It still was better than having the road food, with the beers going on the side, the chopsticks left on the table beside forks, and at Ponyboy's request, a pitcher of water joins them last, filled to the brim with ice that they both knew Dallas sorely needed sooner rather than later.
In that time, they haven't talked much, not having any need to — Dallas' injured face notwithstanding as the pain had started to pick up. For as hard as he beat the piss out of him, Curly still knew how to throw a punch and he'd gotten one or two in despite Dallas' best efforts.
First though, he wanted food, picking up the chopsticks at the same time as Ponyboy does. They both tear open the package, break them both almost at the same time, and arrange them both in their hands.
Only Dallas is deft with his chopsticks, able to get the lo mein on his with an easy twist. Ponyboy on the other hand is clearly struggling with his, the grip unsure and messy, stabbing the food too hard, frowning when he can't get the noodles on there properly. Laughter bubbles up from Dallas' chest when the third attempt goes awry, saying, "You're still shit at this."
"I can get it, I can get it," Ponyboy grumbles, trying futilely to do it, fingers twisting up, trying to shove the noodles in his mouth. The motion just becomes messy, some of it smearing on his face as he goes and Dallas laughs harder at it.
Some things don't change. Dallas is grateful for it as Ponyboy about pouts, having to admit defeat in this moment. He puts down the chopsticks, huffing as he goes for the fork, finally getting the lo mein on with a twist. "What were you gonna do, after you beat the hell out of Curly?"
"Not gonna ask why I did it, huh," Dallas cracks open one of the beers, offering it to Ponyboy, and then cracking one open himself, drinking it down with a greedy swig. "Was just gonna see about some shit I left here, find his brother maybe, go back to New York. What he did — I can't tell you what he did, or why he did it. Can only say he's going to have to watch his back for a long, long time."
The way Ponyboy takes a swig from his beer is the same as ever, with that pensive look to him as he does it. "He's not very good about picking people who he should and shouldn't piss off." The beer is placed back on the table, his fingers thrumming the side. "He's only gotten worse after his sister left Tulsa."
"I ain't shocked Angela left with the first person she was willing to run off with," shrugging his shoulders, Dallas dives right back into his food. "Surprised you haven't, actually."
There are a few things that Dallas expects as an answer: I can't run away with you or I shouldn't run away with you or a laugh and a glance that says things they shouldn't dare speak of here, things that they can't even now.
Instead, he gets no hesitation from Ponyboy, the words smooth, "You're the only person that running away would've been worth doing it for. Far as I can tell, you never asked. Even though I know you wanted to."
The conversation that he's alluding to in that moment, they both could probably recite then and there, beneath the lights above them: the way Ponyboy had said I have to do this, Dally. I want this — Dallas gripping his knees, teeth clenching, throat raw with tears he didn't even know he could shed, I ain't gonna stop you.
That moment, that conversation has always hung over him, has always wound itself in his dreams — how he'd had to give up Ponyboy if he wanted to even have a chance of knowing him later. Of how Ponyboy had cried for him, cried for them both and Dallas' tongue had trailed his skin, tasting salty tears and skin until they'd fallen in bed together for the last time. How many times had he thought about the way Ponyboy's stomach fluttered beneath him, how many times had he remembered how determined he'd been to commit the memory of Ponyboy's stomach scar beneath his hands, how many nights had he gripped himself thinking about the last time Ponyboy had allowed him to knot inside of him, how many moments had he shut his eyes, thinking about what Ponyboy's neck scar had looked like, with his pulse beating in time?
How many times had he thought about doing back and doing it all over again, demanding Ponyboy not go, begging him not to do, doing everything he knew he was too prideful to do, everything he knew was wrong to do for the one person he had loved?
"I didn't have any right to ask you that," it's the same echo of that night, repeated with just as much pain.
"Doesn't mean I don't wish you would've, sometimes," the reply is aged, saddened, with the years between them that they couldn't take back.
Years that they should make up for, Dallas thinks, beyond food, beyond hands that fit together in the space of a car or a police station. Years that he wildly thinks he wants back, years that he thinks Ponyboy wants back too, at this moment.
"Where would you wanna go, if I took you somewhere? New York, with me? California?" Dallas stirs the lo mein with one hand, giving into this. "We'd just live wherever we could for awhile?"
"I think you'd like Montana. You say you hate the country and all but I've seen it in winter. I think you'd love it," Another swig of beer and Ponyboy smiles softer than before. "I'd wanna see New York, though. I always... I see it on tv and I always think about you there, about what you're doing there."
"S'dirty, crowded, not really a place for a country kid," even as he says it, Dallas thinks about what it would be like to come home not to an empty apartment all the time. What it would be like to have Ponyboy there, reading a book by himself on his couch, what it would be like to have Ponyboy cooking him dinner there or nesting beside the window or dressing his wounds.
What kind of life could they have, if only for a moment.
"Maybe I'd love it," Ponyboy answers.
Dallas thinks that it might not be a maybe. Not when the rest of the meal, they slowly begin to eat of of each other's plates, forks mixing with chopsticks, grabbing the other's beers, hands bumping, tangling up eventually until Dallas isn't sure who's drink is who's, until he finds himself thinking that he doesn't care anymore — just like they'd done it as kids, in Buck's, with neon lights falling over them.
When the meal is over, a few bills from Dallas and Ponyboy both on the counter, they don't leave yet. Not entirely. They wash their hands, use the restroom, bring out the pitcher of water with them and linger.
There's no mutual agreement about what to do next as the shops begin to close, as the stars grow brighter and Dallas presses the pitcher on his cheek, Ponyboy leaning on the car, smoking a cigarette. They just sink into the comfortable presence each other brings, exchanging the cigarette between them until it slowly is smoked down, the lights on the shops starting to turn off one by one.
Maybe that fight with Curly knocked a screw loose. Maybe the years of avoiding Tulsa, avoiding the past was finally taking it's toll on Dallas. Maybe he was actually ready to do something about the absence he'd been feeling for such a long time. Maybe when Ponyboy had been so truthful with him, it had reminded him of everything he'd been missing. Maybe whenever Ponyboy takes a pull from his cigarette, and passes it along to Dallas with the smoke issuing past his lips, he's just thinking about when they used to sit in his car and shotgun with each other until they couldn't take it anymore, laughing beneath the stars together until they had finally fucked each other asleep.
Dallas says: Do you wanna go back to the station?
Ponyboy says: No.
When the hotel door closes, it feels like a gunshot renting the air even though the noise is so quiet that Dallas almost misses the click of the lock that comes after.
It's the start to a race, the beginning of a possible end and when Ponyboy turns to look at him – with his long pretty hair almost to his neck with that pretty red undercurrent, with those big, pretty eyes of his and long legs – Dallas knows that whatever happens in this room is never gonna leave this room no matter what they say or do now.
Even with his screws loose and his wires crossed, Dallas understands that.
His hands come to cradle Ponyboy's face, thumbs running over his cheekbones, finger sinking into his hair, eyes focused on Ponyboy's own and the way they're set so beautifully in his face. There is nothing about him that isn't beautiful — including, as his hands move down on his neck, the scar he's had since he was fourteen. It's still that raised nick on his skin, where the switchblade had cut and Dallas had thought about for hours despite the fact he shouldn't have.
Back then, he'd felt guilty about wanting Ponyboy, fourteen too young for him.
Now, there's no real difference between them with how old they are, and his thumb presses against it enough that Ponyboy's breath catches.
That's all he needs, that catching of breath to lean downward and kiss Ponyboy. All he needs to do to taste remnants of cigarettes and beer and everything they'd missed over the years, to taste that sweetness that Ponyboy had never given up all this time.
Ponyboy's pulse jumps beneath his finger, his hand arms wrap around Dallas and at the turn of the dime, it's him controlling the kiss. Him kissing Dallas deeper, inhaling his scent, and Dallas has missed this so much. This little omega who never totally behaved like one, his teeth nipping at Dallas, hands getting a sure grip on Dallas to propel them backward from the door, passing beneath the strips of bright neon from the sign above them.
Earlier that night, the world had shrunk itself down to a pinprick of Curly: of what Dallas could do to Curly with his fists, what he could do hurt him any way he could, his instincts unwilling to devote themselves to anything else, crazed with bloodlust and anger and a need to prove himself. Dallas had become only that for a few minutes, letting blood hit the roof of his mouth, letting his hands and nails and every part of him do any and everything to turn Curly into something less than, something less than.
In the hotel room, the universe shifts itself down again not to a pinprick, but a vast landscape solely made of Ponyboy's body: his sharp teeth illuminated by the light outside, moaning as Dallas sinks his teeth into his neck — the beautiful way his eyes are turned a dark ring surrounded by hazel when he looks at Dallas with a half grin on his face — the curve of his ass when he gets his jeans off enough for Dallas to shove his fingers inside his slick drenched hole — the long, thin fingers that run along Dallas' fangs, mouth saying words that Dallas can't really hear.
Ponyboy is his homeland here, returned back to him for a night, welcoming Dallas as he fucks into his body, into that place he's missed for so long. For every little change like the tattoo on his thigh of the switchblade – the very one that Dallas had gripped tightly in the hospital as he'd threatened the doctor to let them into Johnny's hospital room, the one that Dallas had used to cut Ponyboy's hand at the bonfire to welcome him, the one that Dallas knew had to still be with him to get such details so perfectly on his skin – or new scars on his body that he hadn't seen before, there were still countless familiar places on him that Dallas knew he could never forget, like the scar on his stomach or the taste of his skin on his mouth, or the heady scent Ponyboy always carried, or that long hair of his that still looked so much better than anyone else's.
Maybe romance is this, kissing a man you've missed for over ten years in a hotel room, letting him tell you over and over again, I love you, I love you, I love you as you rock your hips into his with an urgency you haven't felt for anyone else in years, keeping him close to your chest. Maybe love was this, the way you bite and scratch at each other, kissing tenderly where you can, nuzzling against each other's necks, determined to have any and everything you can with each other. Maybe it's even a little more than that.
What Dallas knows is that he doesn't want the morning to come. He wants this to be like one of those nights at Buck's where every second dragged for a moment, where time didn't matter, where they could just linger here, clutching at each other, those pretty legs wrapped around his waist, listening to Ponyboy swear in his ear, feeling him drag his nails across his back, tasting his skin, scenting his slick, his hand pawing at Ponyboy's dick between them, laughing whenever Ponyboy whines at the touch.
It's been too long for Dallas to feel his hips against his, to catch that half second expression on Ponyboy's face, his ass clenching around his cock when he realizes Dallas is about to knot him. Even though is vision is hazy, even though is brain is starting to let go of the details, swept away by orgasm, Dallas knows the signs, can see them, feel them in flashes: that bite of his fingernails in his skin, the way his body goes taut for a moment, as if he's not an omega, as if he isn't made for this — right before Dallas' knot breaches him, his expression morphing into shock still, mouth open, eyes wide, unsure until Dallas finally slips into him entirely and his face melts into happiness, pleasure as he orgasms with him.
The world is nothing except sensation and color and the thought that there was no home better than this: coming back to the sensation of Ponyboy tight around him, slick still gushing around his cock, all over their thighs, cum on their stomachs.
Just as it was instinct to keep hitting Curly, it's instinct to keep rocking into Ponyboy long before Ponyboy has come back to himself. To be knotted so deeply inside of him, to stay there, to want to keep pushing Ponyboy over the edge, it's all he knows how to do, all he wants to do.
So he does that, over and over again. Right when Ponyboy seems like he might come back to himself, right when it seems like he might say something coherent, Dallas just moves, strikes that spot inside of him over and over again until he or Ponyboy or both of them are overtaken again and again.
Let morning never come. Just let him stay here, panting into Ponyboy's neck, nuzzling against that scar, saying, "One more time?"
Just so Ponyboy can say, voice rough and thick and cock drunk, "Yes."
Eventually, they settle into the bed together, tied together, Dallas' knot spent. Ponyboy looks at him with those still blown out, pretty eyes. Dallas has no clue what time it is, doesn't want to know. He knows he should be reaching for water to give Ponyboy, caring for him, and yet he's too tired now to do anything except stroke Ponyboy's neck with his fingers.
He wants this, all the time. Wants to have Ponyboy smiling at him with a sloppy, happy fucked out expression on his face all the time, happily on his knot for what seemed like hours. Wants to run his hand over that pretty thigh tattoo, ask him about it. Wants to just have this every morning, every day for the rest of his life.
"Wish you would've mated me," Ponyboy breathes, eyes fluttering. "Wish you could mate me now. Make me not leave for the rest of my life."
Dallas doesn't answer. How can he, knowing how this has to end for them both?
Ponyboy nuzzles against him. "I wouldn't. I'd give it all up."
Dallas' teeth ache. He thinks of what it would be like, to slip out of the door with Ponyboy in the morning. To look at the sun together, to eat breakfast, to have a future with him. What it would be like to never have to leave him again.
So he opens his mouth, cupping the back of Ponyboy's head with his fingers. He thinks about what it would mean, to do this, to give into what they both want, instead of always yearning.
He looks at Ponyboy's pulse, against that old scar.
He looks up at the window, and thinks he sees a hint of dawn. Then his eyes drift downward again, his teeth aching again, Ponyboy's words rattling in his head.
Ponyboy looks at him from the bed, and he breathes out, "Everything. I would."
He leans forward, mere centimeters, and sinks his teeth into Ponyboy's neck, right where the mating mark should go.
Blood fills his mouth and Dallas knows he'll never have to leave home again.
They fit together. They always have. And they always will.
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