#dalpony

Curling up, I was thankful for Dally’s jacket. It was too big, but it was warm. Not even the rattling of the train could keep me awake, and I went to sleep in a hoodlum’s jacket, with a gun lying next to my hand.

Ponyboy wakes up in a cold sweat, the bed empty of Sodapop. He was probably up late talking to Darry about bills they were trying to hide from Ponyboy. He rolls over to try and go back to sleep, but his heart is pounding in his ears like he'd just run a mile sprint. So instead he decides to get a drink of water. When he steps into the living room, the house feels darker and quieter than it has ever been; there are dark droplets on the walls and a metallic smell in the air.

Dally is hunched in the middle of the room, breathing heavy, deep breaths. He stands up slowly, uncurling to reveal he was taller than he normally seemed, taller even, by nearly a foot, than Darry. His dark hair now glowing a platinum blonde in the minimal moonlight coming through the broken door that hangs off the frame. He turns to look at Ponyboy like an owl, ice-blue eyes piercing through the darkness as his head twists around first, followed by his body that unravels until it faces Ponyboy.

Chills race up Ponyboy's arms, and his heart skips a beat at the unnaturally wide smile that splits Dally's face in half. He tilts his head and leans forward to observe Ponyboy with a distinctly satisfied hum.

"Dal?" Ponyboy whispers, dread creeping up from his stomach.

"Pony, did I wake you?" The voice is perfectly normal, a slightly New York-accented drawl coming from Dally, not at all what Ponyboy would've expected coming from this- this thing.

"What- what's goin'on?" Ponyboy's voice is barely audible to his own ears as adrenaline floods his senses. Dally's grin gets impossibly wider, his strangely pointed canines alongside even more canines where there should be molars, Ponyboy notes dreadfully.

"You are no longer grounded. We can be friends again." Dally's voice is tinged with laughter, like he was entertained much more than he'd ever sounded before.

"What'd you do?" Ponyboy can't keep his hands still as his gaze trails over the dark spots again, then down to the pool on the floor, then down to Dally's feet, next to the couch, where an arm was lying just visible around the corner. Bile rises in the back of Ponyboy's throat when he recognizes the friendship bracelet he'd given Sodapop years ago, the one he never took off-

"I made it so we can be friends again." Dally sounds so pleased, like a cat that's left a dead bird on his owner's doorstep, and Ponyboy is sick at the comparison.

"Ain't you happy? I did good."

Is there anything worse than shipping a pairing set in the way back, but knowing they'd get down and nasty to some modern R&B???

Dalpony canon era but make it Lolita. I don't usually address the age gap in my Dalpony or DalOhNy (Dally/Johnny/Pony) fics, but it is realistically problematic and will be until Pony is at least like, 21-22.

I'm thinking it'll be set when they're 13 & 16 or 14 & 17, but I'm unsure. Very little tags and warnings for satire (is that the right word?), make it more implied. The entire narrative is going 'oh yes this is okay! its love they know each other they trust each other' yada yada yada, and it's written very seriously, as if the entire point isn't to show how people romanticize these kinds of age gaps and relationships without consciously acknowledging they're only okay in fiction.

Probably add in some kind of abuse or neglect, like Dally cheating on Pony, getting super upset when Pony asks if they can tell their friends, Dally guilt-tripping Pony, maybe even pressuring him into sexual acts. But make it complicated by showing that Dally has no clue this is truly wrong, because this is the same way he and the other boys treat women, and then apply that POV to the narrative itself. Keep it vague. Don't word it as Dally pressuring Pony, word it as him comforting Pony and helping him be more open. Don't word it as Dally cheating and gaslighting Pony, word it as him keeping their cover up so people don't kill them for being gay and oh he doesn't really enjoy it and its not as good as it is with Pony.

Perhaps it's canon compliant and Dally dies along with Johnny (or maybe only Johnny survives so he gets to be there for the reveal), and people don't quite understand why Pony seems so broken up about Dally to an almost theatrical extent, until he reaches under his shirt and reveals a chain with Dally's skull ring on it. He - in tears - tells the gang everything about his and Dally's relationship, and how much he misses Dally helping him be more comfortable with intimacy (aka pushing Pony's boundaries until he got a yes). How much he wishes Dally were here because who else would be willing to sleep with random girls just to protect Pony. And the gang isn't stupid right so they cotton on to the fact that Dally was manipulating Pony and not really helping him even though - while no one knows this - Dally thought he was doing the right thing, or at least not being any worse than usual.

And it kinda ends with Pony sitting at Dally's grave a year later and he's talking to Dally and wondering aloud if Dally himself even knew that what he was doing was wrong.