Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Dal?” 

Shit. 

Dallas closes his eyes tightly when he hears Ponyboy’s soft voice, hissing between his teeth when it sends a pulsing ache through his bruised eye socket. 

Of all the Curtis brothers to notice him pacing their front yard, why did it have to be Ponyboy?

Steeling himself, he shoves his hands into his pocket and turns back to the light of the porch, forcing his shoulders down from his ears, “Hey, kid.” 

Ponyboy is leaning against the doorframe, arms folded and head tilted down with a quirked eyebrow, the light from inside tinting his auburn hair to a warm gold.  

He looks gorgeous- tall and lean and bathed in light- and Dallas suddenly feels like the mangey neighborhood fox caught rummaging through the trash, slouching in the cold shadows of the Curtis’ front yard in the middle of the night. 

“What are you doin’ here?” Ponyboy asks, tilting his head with a frown.  

Sodapop has the same habit, like a confused puppy dog. But Ponyboy looks like he’s analyzing Dallas’ every move, every thought he’s ever had. 

On Soda, it looks cute. On Ponyboy, it makes Dallas feel like he’s been stripped naked in a room full of everybody he’s ever met. 

Gritting his teeth against the discomfort, he shifts his weight and juts his chin out, “Jeez, way to make a guy feel welcome, Pone. Thought there was an open door policy or some shit-” 

“No, Dally- I mean, what are you doing creeping around out here and not comin’ inside?” Ponyboy cuts him off. 

And he’ll blame the concussion, but Dallas can only blink up at him, “Huh?” 

Ponyboy’s eyes narrow before widening, the younger boy pushing off the doorframe to take a step forward, “What happened to your eye?”  

Oh yeah, his eye. His eye that’s still pulsing painfully and is so swollen that there’s a slight hazy fuzz to everything that he’s only just noticing. 

The last couple of hours flash through his head like a really shitty movie. Having an innocent smoke on street corner outside the movie house. The cop car pulling up, some old pig hanging out the window telling him to ‘move along’. Flicking his lit cigarette straight into the open window. Getting slammed face first into the brick wall. Running blind with a ringing in his ears. 

He can’t tell Ponyboy that. Ever since Johnny...ever since Dallas had his run in with the cops that night, he’s tried to keep his head down when it comes to the law. For Pony. The kid had looked so small that night, shaking and pale as he pressed himself back to Dallas’s chest, making himself a human shield in front of the line of officers and their heaters pointed his way. Dallas will never forget how Darry sounded as his shouts went from urgent to terrified, or how Soda looked as he tried to lurch forward, wailing as he wrestled against Steve’s grip on him.  

Dallas had wanted to die that night. He knew it. So did Pony.  

But he saw Ponyboy’s face, blurred by his own tears; bloody, frightened and so incredibly determined and...fuck he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave the kid. 

And he’s been doing okay for the most part- keeping his nose clean enough that Two-Bit pokes at him about his new life as a ‘good upstanding citizen’.  

But he’s still Dallas Winston, so of course he still fucks it up from time to time. And every time, Ponyboy looks at him with that tired disappointment, a hint of haunted fear that Dallas first saw in his green eyes three years ago. 

And for all Dallas doesn’t give two shits what anyone thinks of him...he can’t let the kid down. 

“Shepherd lost a bet. Guy’s one hell of a sore loser.” he grunts, years of practice allowing the lie to slip out as smooth as honey. 

Ponyboy scoffs, shaking his head, “Wait here.” he mutters, turning back to the doorway. 

“What, not gonna invite me inside?” 

“Dar’ll kill you if you get blood on the couch. Then he’ll kill me.”  

“But I ain’t even bleeding!” 

“Well that ain’t paint on your damn face.” Pony calls back as he disappears, “Sit down and shut up.” 

Dallas gapes after him, wondering when the hell the kid got bold enough to boss him about like that. Wondering when the hell he got dumb enough to obey.  

He drops his ass heavily on the top step- only because he wants to- groaning with the old wood as the world spins for a second. He touches his fingers to his temple gingerly, wincing when he feels the familiar hot stickiness of blood. 

Concussion must have knocked the pain out of him. 

“Quit touching it. You’re gonna get it dirty.” Ponyboy is suddenly beside him. 

Dallas drops his hand, only a little petulantly, “Where’re your brothers at anyway?” 

He hisses as Ponyboy presses a clean, damp rag hard against his forehead, instinctively pulling away until Ponyboy clicks his tongue irritably with a mutter, “Keep still, for God’s sake.” 

“You didn’t answer my question.” 

That earns him a long-suffering sigh, “They’re both working. Darry picked up overtime and some big shot brought their souped up convertible to the DX so Soda and Steve are staying late.” 

Dallas hums, “Surprised Superman leaves you home alone this time of night.” 

Ponyboy prods him extra hard for that one with a glare, “Mouth closed, eye closed.” 

Huffing, Dallas hunches his shoulders, “I miss when you were scared of me.” 
That gets a chuckle from the other boy, and through his blurry vision he can see a small smile breaking through Ponyboy’s irritated facade, “I hate to break it to you, Dal- I ain’t been scared of you for a long time.”  

Dallas opens his mouth, only to grit his teeth with a groan when Pony presses the cloth against his swollen eye. 

“Sorry, sorry...” Ponyboy murmurs softly, “M’trying to be gentle, promise.” 
Dallas huffs, squinting his one eye at the younger boy, “So this ain’t revenge for all the years I roughed around with you?” 
“Well, maybe a little.” Pony muses, smirking for a moment before his face falls back into focus as he uses his other hand to tilt Dallas’s face away, “Hold still.” 

They carry on in silence for a couple of minutes, Ponyboy carefully cleaning the blood from his face and plastering over the shallow but nasty graze above his eyebrow that Dallas wasn’t even aware he had. 

Neither of them speak, save for the occasional grunt of discomfort and whispered apology. 

Dallas finds the tension melting from his muscles, weariness wrapping around him like the gentle light still seeping the open door. 

Through his not-fucked-up-eye, he watches Ponyboy as he works. His pale green eyes are glinting in the light, flickering with a million thoughts at once, too intelligent for Dallas to ever hope to keep up with. His hair looks damp, like he’d just showered the grease from it before Dallas rocked up like a battered mess on the lawn. Every now and then he bites the inside of his cheek when he gets really focused, creating an endearing pout that Dallas really wants to ki- 

“Quit lookin’ at me like that.” 

Dallas blinks hard, then immediately groans when his eye throbs, “I ain’t doin’ nothing.” 

“I know what you’re thinking.” 

“You don’t know shit.” 

Ponyboy fixes him with an unimpressed stare that says he can see through all of his bullshit for a moment before he goes back to gently pressing the rag to his swollen eye. 

Dallas keeps watching him through his good eye, even as Pony does his best to pretend he can’t feel the heat of his gaze. 

Even when Dallas shifts closer, leaning into his touch against his face. 

He can hear Ponyboy’s breath hitch, even when the kid’s face gives nothing away.  

Slowly, he reaches up, wraps his fingers around Ponyboy’s wrist and coaxes his hand down between them. 
Ponyboy swallows tightly, “Dal-” 

Dallas kisses him before the kid can protest. It’s no more than a gentle press of lips, but Dallas feels heat warm his entire body, seeping into his blood and bones. 

And Ponyboy...lets him. And then...he kisses him back. 

His eye is still throbbing and his temple is stinging like a motherfucker and he probably left a few brain cells back on that brick wall, but none of that matters because Ponyboy Curtis is kissing him back, right here on the front porch steps.  

He leans back slowly, he doesn’t want to, but he needs to prove to himself that it’s real. And sure enough Ponyboy is there, blinking his green eyes open as if from a daze, as if he can’t believe this is happening either. 

Dallas wonders how it took him so long to see how damn beautiful the kid is. And while he’s no sappy romantic, he thinks this must be what Ponyboy sees when he looks at a sunset. 

A grin tugs at Dallas’s face, growing when Ponyboy mirrors it softly.  

He reaches up, brushing his fingers across Ponyboy’s cheek to cup his jaw, right before a voice cuts through the peaceful quiet like ice. 

“Dallas.”  

They jerk apart from each other, Dallas damn near biting through his own tongue when his head rings painfully. His vision swims for a moment, before he turns to see Darrel stood at the bottom of the porch steps, arms folded, cold blue eyes narrowed and furious. 

Fuck, he hadn’t even heard the truck pull into the drive. 

Ponyboy swallows roughly beside him, “Dar-” 

“Get in the house, Ponyboy.” 

“Darrel-” 

“ Now.”  

Ponyboy’s mouth snaps shut. Dallas can see the way his brow furrows, green eyes flickering between him and his brother, clearly fighting down the impulse to snap back.  

Dallas gives him a secret smirk and winks his good eye; it probably doesn’t look half as handsome as it normally would, but it’s enough that the kid holds his tongue and pushes to his feet with obvious reluctance. 

Dallas watches him shuffle to the door, green eyes darting nervously at them once more before Ponyboy slips inside and quietly pulls the door shut. 

And Dallas, with a strong hunch that his headache is about to get a whole lot worse, turns back to face the fury of Darrel Shaynne Curtis. 

“S’up, Superman?”