#johnnycade

With the car rattling comfortably along the road, Ponyboy fixed his gaze on their surroundings, flitting by outside the window. He felt oddly content, considering everything, and he chalked it up to the food in his stomach, the exercise he’d had earlier that morning and sunlight blazing through the car. He was warm, out in the bright sunlight for the first time in what felt like so long, after he and Johnny had squirreled themselves away in that abandoned church Dallas had pointed them towards. Going swimming had allowed him to stretch, to move freely without worrying about being spotted. They’d been cramped up and hidden away, before ending up bundled into the car for ages, equally just as cramped, and his muscles had been starting to feel like they were turning to stone.

He shifted in place, sinking back into the seat, letting himself relax just a little bit more. He’d been tense since they’d gone to eat, all three of them pulling back on their wrinkled shirts and dusty jeans so they could pile into the car and head for the nearest fast food place.

Sure, he and Johnny had huddled down in the backseat, ducking even lower every time the sound of footsteps drew too close to the car, but that hadn’t done much to soothe his fear of discovery. The only comfort he’d managed to draw during the agonising wait for Dallas to join them in the car again had come from imagining Two Bit laughing at him for worrying like he’d been the one to go and stab someone. He was kind of glad he wasn’t with them, even if he couldn’t help but think of him as he worried. He wouldn’t be able to keep quiet or stay inconspicuous for long.

But, before long, Dallas had slipped back into the car, almost scaring the two of them out of their skin, and they’d been back on the road, stopping by a small, empty park to scarf down the food as the sun rose to its fullest point. 

“Hey. You two wanna go and grab some new clothes?” Dallas asked, breaking the midday silence, tapping absently at the steering wheel as he turned the car, heading straight towards the centre of whatever town they’d ended up in.

The two were silent for a minute, exchanging a baffled look between them. The proposal felt almost unreal, like they’d closed their eyes for a fraction of a second and fallen into some other version of their world.

“Have you lost your mind?” Johnny eventually spat out, his face frozen in an expression of confusion. “I thought we weren’t supposed to be making ourselves too conspicuous?”

“And we won’t. Come on man, I can’t stay in these clothes forever, I’m itching like crazy already.” Dallas replied, rolling his eyes flippantly.

“We can’t just stroll down the street like usual, Dal. We’re bound to get booked.”

“Have some faith in me, Johnnycake. I know what I’m doing. So long as we stay out of the way, I doubt we’ll raise a single eyebrow.”

Johnny settled back into his seat, eyes fixed on his feet. Ponyboy could practically hear the cogs ticking around and around in his head, thoughts flitting erratically back and forth behind his eyes.

Dallas turned down a small, nondescript street, and Ponyboy’s eyes flitted to the window, his attention caught on a few stores dotting an otherwise semi-abandoned block. One was painted a very faded red, so light that he almost thought that it was exposed brick for a moment. There were racks of clothes just outside, with folded paper taped to the front of each, flapping gently in the breeze. As Dallas pulled into a spot across the street, he realised they were signs telling passerby that the racks were discounted.

The three of them sat there, frozen, for a moment. It was like a leap of faith, and none of them wanted to jump first, especially if it meant dragging the other two down to their potential deaths as well.

“Come on. Just follow me and don’t draw attention to yourself. It’s easy.” Dallas said, opening his door and stepping outside, throwing himself off of that imaginary precipice with careless abandon.

Scared and nervous, Johnny and Ponyboy followed suit, stepping out into the clear, midday sun. It felt almost wrong to be out there and he wanted to dart back into the car the moment he was out in the open. By the looks of it, Johnny felt the same way, huddling into his jean jacket, eyes darting over the pavement erratically. 

The street was empty, the only other signs of life being the shadow of someone moving around inside the store with the clothes racks out the front and a battered Rambler parked at the opening of the little street.

Dallas didn’t seem at all as concerned as they were, strolling across the street with the callous confidence of a well fed alley cat, blue eyes flashing with smug conviction. 

Once they reached the racks, Dallas didn’t miss a beat, not faltering once, reaching to start shuffling through the various sizes and styles left out there. Only now did Ponyboy notice that they were standing outside the thrift, flyers for missing pets and community events yellowing in the sun, taped to the front display window.

He tried his best to follow suit, trying to relax his shoulders and look like he didn’t have a care in the world, just stopping by for a quick browse, nothing to see here. He stuck close by Johnny, bobbing back and forth, worried that if he stuck too close to his side he might start to look unnatural to any people passing by.

Once there was some distance between them and Dallas, who had drifted off to examine the things stacked by the front door, Ponyboy shuffled over to where Johnny was, meeting his gaze from the other side of the rack they were pretending to look at.

“What’s with him?” he whispered, flicking absently through the children’s sizes blocking him from the other clothes.

“What d’you mean?” 

“We’ve been stuck in that car for ages, on the run, but now all of a sudden he’s full of beans?”

Johnny sighed, knocking his forehead against the metal rack.

“Yeah, I know. Look, just ignore it, Pone. He’s probably just glad to be out of that car for a while. Dal gets stir crazy when he’s stuck in one place for too long, and it's not like we haven’t both been annoyed by how cramped up we’ve been lately.”

Ponyboy looked away, his attention drawn back to the clothes on the rack. None of them were things he’d typically wear, but that was probably for the best. Nobody would recognise him that way.

He doubted that Dallas was just stir crazy. He was never just stir crazy, or bored, or tired, or whatever other excuse he tossed over his shoulder on his way to his next score. Something about the narrowing of his eyes reminded him of a snake, hidden back beneath a rock or somebody’s porch, watching ankles moving back and forth, deciding which one to latch onto first. There was something behind that look, he just couldn’t figure out what.

Maybe he’d feel better if Soda was with them. He’d be able to understand it all far better than he could, and even if he couldn’t, he’d probably be able to actually make him feel better.

But Soda wasn’t with them. Of course he wasn’t. He wasn’t involved in this mess they’d found themselves stuck in. He was back at home, going about his usual life, going from work to home as if nothing was wrong.

He was probably worried sick. Just the thought alone sent a pang of guilt worming through his stomach and he grabbed something off the rack, slinging over his arm, half hoping the act would take his mind off it all. That failed, not even working for a split second, but luckily, it looked like Dallas was heading back their way again, carrying a few bundles of fabric under one arm.

“What’ve you got?” he asked, still unusually chipper, in his own weird way.

Johnny’s attention turned to him and he could faintly hear him telling Dallas about what he’d come across out there, but it felt like Ponyboy’s ears were clogged with cotton wool, drawing his focus away from that moment, and instead drifting over to the store’s window, staring absently at interior racks, spanning all the way to the very back of the store, weaving lanes of shirts and pants filling the space, dotted by small stools with other knicknacks piled on top.

There were stores like this back home. He hardly ever found himself wandering through one, since clothes had never been something that entertained his mind and he had basically everything he needed in the wardrobe department, leaving the little store a few blocks down from his house devoid of his patronage.

There was another one, or at least another one he knew about, further in town and closer to the other stores and businesses in the heart of it all, much bigger than the one he was used to seeing. He hadn’t been anywhere near there in years. He hadn’t even noticed it until now.

He didn’t recognise the specific interior of the store in front of him. He knew that. But it was enough to tip over the memories in the back of his mind, sending them skittering through his head like the spilled contents of an old storage box.

The bigger store back home had been a cornerstone of his earliest childhood memories. Back when things felt simpler, and the only big event in his life was the weekly event of running errands with his mother. He’d spent what felt like hours crawling around underneath the many clothes racks, reaching up to trail his hand through the swathes of different fabrics. It had felt like heaven back then, able to squirm around under there, knowing that the safety of his mother was only a few feet away.

His eyes prickled unexpectedly and he turned away, wiping furiously at his face. The action pulled some of the wool out of his head and he self consciously started to cough, shaking his head a little to stave off the blooming tears.

“You alright, Pony?” Johnny called, leaning over the rack, who he quickly tried to wave away as quickly as possible.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Got something in my nose.” he choked out, wiping at his face one last time, sniffling back the rest of his tears before they could even form.

That seemed to be enough of an explanation for both he and Dallas, the latter of which took the clothes Johnny passed to him and headed inside, a bell above the door jingling to announce his arrival.

“Wait, where’s he going?” Ponyboy asked, trying to shake off the fog that had settled over him for a minute there.

“He said he’s got some cash for the clothes, so I’m guessing he’s going to pay for all of it. Don’t worry, I snagged you a thing or two.” Johnny replied, shooting him a small smile, a ghost of his old sense of humour dancing across his face for a split second. 

Maybe Dallas’ odd good mood was getting contagious. He kind of hoped so. Seeing Johnny so small, his expression always storming, gaze locked on his feet and mouth set in a hard, guilty line, made him feel just as miserable. 

“Come on, let’s get back to the car.” Johnny said and he followed him the minute he moved, tagging along behind him without thinking much about it.

He hadn’t expected to get so upset that it brought him to tears. Hell, he hadn’t cried over all of that in a good while. He wasn’t sure why, now that he thought about it, and he didn’t like the wave of guilt that overtook him when he realised that. He didn’t want to forget his parents. He’d been committed to never ridding his memory of them. They didn’t deserve that.

Maybe he shouldn’t have wiped away his tears, and let them fall instead. But he didn’t want to start bawling in front of both Johnny and Dallas. They were in enough of a jam, the last thing they needed was for him to go to pieces all over them.

He barely registered it as they reached the car, the doors clicking open and shut as the pair climbed inside, Johnny in the passenger seat yet again. His own thoughts were swirling so hard and so fast that he barely paid what was going on around him any mind.

It was only now that he started to realise how awful this all felt. He was so far from home, so far from everything he was used to, everyone that he knew, and any distant memories of his parents still lingering around them all. 

What if he got back and it all felt different? What if those glimmers of his parents he felt around him when visiting their old haunts were long gone by the time of his return? What if he had to lose them all over again?

His hands rubbed at the legs of his jeans, the uncomfortable feeling of the dirt and grime caught all over them nearly driving him to grind his teeth against his gums. He was starting to be thankful for Dallas’ risky idea. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back, still wet from their dip in the little spot they’d found amongst the trees, and he was sure he’d go nuts if he had to sit in the backseat and wait for it to dry in whatever sunlight filtered through the windows.

“You doing alright?” Johnny asked, slinging one arm over the back of his seat in a gesture that resembled Dallas so much it felt oddly alien when Johnny did it. Despite that, his brown eyes were sincere and the expression on his face was one of genuine concern.

“Yeah, I guess. The, uh…thrift store kinda reminded me of this place my mom and I used to visit when I was a kid.” he answered, picking at a loose thread sticking out of the side of his jeans.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. We always used to swing round before we went grocery shopping for the week. My dad could never understand it, but I think I could, in my own way. She just liked looking at stuff, even if we didn’t need any of it back home. I guess it was her way of relaxin’.” 

The car was quiet for a moment, filled only by the sound of birds tweeting through the grass shifting in the breeze just outside. It felt so strange to say it all out loud, this oddly painful memory that never used to be such a sore point. But he knew Johnny would care. Johnny was a lot more like him than any of the others. He knew what he meant, even when he could force his words into sentences that communicated his point right.

“My mom used to like doing that kind of thing too. Way, way back, when I was little.” Johnny eventually said, looking down at his hands, which had busied themselves fiddling with the cracked leather of the seat. “We used to go on these little trips, just us, and we’d bounce around town all day, looking through any little stores we came across. It didn’t happen very often, usually only whenever she woke up in a good mood, but…y’know…I always used to look forward to it.”

They both went quiet again, not looking at each other, busying their hands instead, as their thoughts spun far out of control. 

It was a weird thing to imagine, Johnny’s mother in good spirits, bustling through department stores with her tiny son in tow. He wasn’t sure he could even imagine her not screaming. He wondered if it was the same for Johnny. Could he even think of his mother without hearing her shrill voice piercing the air, words ringing fierce with venomous hate?

“I miss when things were simple, like back then.” Ponyboy muttered, half surprised that those words even managed to push past his lips.

“Me too.” Johnny said, and he was again surprised by his response, that he’d even allowed those soft, vulnerable words to pull into the air outside his head. Maybe it was the change in location. Maybe being away from everything they were familiar with was helping him open up, his mind devoid of the typical fear of vulnerability that seemed to dog all three of them. 

Before they could dwell on it all too much, the driver’s side door swung open and Dallas pulled himself into the car, slamming it shut behind him. There was a tall, brown paper bag sitting on his lap, which he promptly tossed into the back seat. Ponyboy only just ducked out of the way, and it instead fell onto the seat beside him, the folded clothes inside spilling out.

“We’ll go find a bathroom or something now, yeah? Because I can’t stay in these clothes for another minute, I swear.” he said, still wearing the unshakeable demeanour he’d adopted earlier.

Without waiting for either of them to respond, he started the car and pulled away from the curb, the car trailing off down the street, Dallas’ cold, blue eyes flicking from the street in front of him to the street on his side, scanning for whatever he was looking for.

“What took you so long, Dal? The cashier giving you trouble?” Johnny asked, his tone a little off, clearly still carrying some of that worry that had reared its head when Dallas first suggested showing their faces in a public place.

“Nah, not really. It looked like she wanted to chat my ear off, but I guess she doesn’t get much company over there.” Dallas snorted, rolling his eyes like he had somewhere to be other than chatting with whatever random employees felt like catching his ear.

Johnny and Dallas kept talking, but Ponyboy lost interest, his gaze drifting to the road dragging lazily past them out the window. He watched grassy streets and old houses drift by as they drove through town, little details of people’s lives passing by without a second thought from any of them. 

Everyone here had lives, just like he did, and he couldn’t help but wonder if things worked here the way it did back home. Did they worry about socs, or greasers, or either? Or did they have their own separate thing, something completely foreign to the three of them? All of these little details skimming past them as they drove through neighbourhood after neighbourhood, children’s toys abandoned in the grass, packets of cigarettes stacked on a fencepost, a crate of newspapers fading in the sun, all of those were a part of someone’s life, they all had a story and an explanation behind them, and he couldn’t help but wish they could stop for a moment and find out what it was all about.

He sighed and sunk back into his seat, letting the window down a little so that the passing breeze could comb its cold fingers through his hair. 

Even if they did have the time to stop, that wouldn’t mean anything. Realistically, they wouldn’t be able to find out anything and everything about the lives of the people they passed. That would involve staying there way longer than they could, and much longer than they’d all want to. They were all missing someone and setting up in a different town for who knows how long wouldn’t make any of them happy.

Johnny and Dallas were still talking, locked in a conversation that he could barely focus on. The two of them were like that, similar to himself and Johnny, and he could never fully understand it. He and Johnny understood each other, had similar personalities, so they were able to talk for hours without getting bored and understand each other without ever needing to speak. Johnny and Dallas seemed to have the same kind of bond, which he could never seem to puzzle out. The two of them couldn’t be more different in every way, and he often wondered how they managed to talk without arguing every minute of every day.

Johnny was small, down trodden, bearing a deep scar along the side of his face as a reminder of how harsh of a hand he’d been dealt. He and Ponyboy were able to share those few moments of vulnerability due to Johnny’s patience and his nonjudgemental attitude. He spent all of his time huddled into his jean jacket, wide, dark eyes peering out at everyone with a pleading look, as if asking without speaking to be kind and leave him alone.

Dallas, on the other hand, was sharp around every edge, with a spiked matt of white-blonde hair puffing out around his face like a demented halo. His blue eyes were cold and cruel, his smile always too sharp, as if he was constantly baring his teeth. He never slumped back into himself, standing out proud, with the overconfidence of someone who was afraid of nothing. He prowled through his life with no fear, no worry, doing as he wanted when he wanted, throwing caution to the wind. He only cared about himself and what he wanted at that moment.

And yet here they were, sitting close in the front of the car, laughing as they talked like there wasn’t enough time in the world. Johnny’s face had softened out of its nervous mask somewhat and his eyes glimmered with an odd, hopeful look that Ponyboy couldn’t quite understand. Dallas was smiling too, which still looked as threatening as ever, but there was a calmness settling over his features, making the sharper parts of him almost fade into the background, even the wide scar cutting across one side of his face becoming almost unnoticeable. 

It was hard not to wonder about him, especially in moments like this, when he looked almost normal and approachable. He knew he wouldn’t have bothered even participating in the conversation he and Johnny had just had. But did he have memories like that? Come to think of it, he didn’t know a thing about Dallas’ parents. He couldn’t even picture him like that, skipping along behind his mother while she headed to the grocery store. He couldn’t picture Dallas like that, with round cheeks and bright eyes, gapped teeth beaming innocently at other passersby. 

Maybe it was so hard to picture because he’d never been that way. Maybe Dallas came from a long line of people with hard set shoulders and sharp, mean grins, with the exact same attitude problems he bore like a badge of honour. Maybe he’d never been small or innocent, and he always would have grown into the person he was today.

Now <i>that</i> was easy for him to picture.

Eventually, they pulled into a spot out the front of a small park, which was empty, apart from one man and his dog, but they were running back and forth on the opposite end, far enough away that they couldn’t see his face. Good. He wouldn’t be able to see theirs either.

Following in the footsteps of each other, they all filed into the bathroom, a small, square brick building. The inside was as nondescript as the outside, years worth of dirt and whatever else caking the walls inside. There was only one stall, so Johnny gestured for Ponyboy to go first, Dallas handing him a folded bundle of clothes. 

He awkwardly shuffled in the stall and pushed the door closed. The lock was half hanging askew, looking like someone had kicked it off in a fit of rage. It stayed shut for the most part though, so he hung the new clothes up on the hook on the door and got started shedding the shirt Dallas had given him the night they ran off.

It felt odd, looking at the shirt lying on the floor like a half folded snake skin. It would be nice if it would work like that in real life. If he could just shed his skin, leave behind the parts of him attached to all of this.

For a moment, he bunched his fists in the fabric of the shirt, just like the night Dallas had pushed it into his lap. Then, his hands had been shaking, barely managing to latch onto the fabric, still freezing cold and soaking wet from being shoved into that fountain.

He dropped the shirt, grabbing at the new clothes, as if the thought had shocked him back into his body. Just thinking of it made him feel queasy and he was grimly thankful that he was in a bathroom stall.

He could only just keep the memory out of his head, and every night he felt it lapping closer and closer to his heels. The feeling of freezing water flooding his lungs, the animalistic panic that drove him to kick and clutch at whatever solid shape he could feel nearby, all of it lingered in the very back of his head, threatening to take him over once again, sending him into a panicked spiral.

Hands beginning to shake, he unbuttoned his pants, shedding them next so he could don the new ones. He’d been so sure he wouldn’t come back home. As his vision had faded, no matter how hard he’d tried to maintain an iron grip on consciousness, he’d been positive he’d never see his brothers again, never know what fate befell Johnny that night after they were done drowning him. Darry hated him, and yet in that moment he’d wanted nothing more than to be back home, even if it meant him chewing his ear off for staying out so late. He hadn’t always been that way. He’d been easy going a long time ago, easy to smile and quick to respond to any joke. He’d been the big brother everyone wanted and Pony had been positive he’d have his back no matter what. He didn’t know where that part of him was now. As water had flooded his nose and blurred his vision, he’d desperately wished to go back home to that version of his brother. The one he could recognise.

His big brother didn’t have tense shoulders and bags under his eyes. His brother was usually outside, laughing and tossing a ball around with Soda, hollering at any of their friends that passed by, half challenging them to some kind of contest, that they were all always positive he’d win. That was his brother. Not this stranger wearing the shell of him their parent’s death had left behind.

Shaking that thought away, Ponyboy brushed himself off and pulled the bathroom door open, his old clothes tucked under his arm.

“Don’t toss the clothes. Don’t wanna leave a trail for anyone to follow.” Dallas told him, expression turning serious as he moved past him, the door soon clicking shut behind him.

Ponyboy stood in front of the cracked, smudged mirror for a moment, brushing and tugging at his clothes. The image in front of him made him wince. His hair was sticking up in tufts, much shorter than he’d ever had it, and cut so unevenly it looked like it had all started growing at different times. It was bright yellow blonde as well, so foreign to him that he struggled to even recognise himself.

The clothes Dallas had grabbed fit fine, other than the shirt, which had to be half tucked into his jeans, since it hung low and baggy around his waist. He patted at the off white fabric, smoothing down the small lapels and trying to ignore how much he didn’t like the red and blue stripes running across the top of the entire shirt. 

At least the jeans were pretty neutral, a brighter blue than he would have chosen normally, but devoid of any stray threads or patchy holes. They looked kind of good with his scuffed shoes and he felt himself stand a little taller as he noticed it. 

Maybe not looking like himself could be fun. He wouldn’t have to worry about anyone noticing him or judging him and his family, because even if he ran into someone he knew, they probably wouldn’t even notice it was him.

“You look like a soc.” Johnny chuckled, cocking his head to stare at him.

“It’s only because you washed all the grease out of my hair.”

“Nah, I think you’d still be able to pull it off with your hair greased down.”

“I don’t think I’d make a very good soc.”

“You’re too rough around the edges.”

“Says you. Even grease can’t keep your hair from looking scruffy, Johnnycake.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

They both giggled quietly and Ponyboy felt a little more weight slide off his shoulders. These small moments, small snatches of being able to act like their typical, every day selves soothed some of the frantic worry curdling in the pit of his stomach.

The stall door cracked open and Dallas paced out, not even glancing at the mirror. He settled against the wall opposite it and Ponyboy tried his hardest to choke back a small giggle.

Dallas looked just about the same, with his matted mane of hair brushing his shoulders and his wilde, blue eyes glittering with buried emotion, the only difference now being a checkered green shirt and a pair of loose, dark jeans. He couldn’t quite tell if they were loose because they didn’t fit or it was just the cut of them.

A soft snicker bubbled out of Johnny, Dallas’ immediately swinging around to face him. There wasn’t a touch of humour in his expression but Johnny didn’t seem to care, hiding his face in one hand as he buckled over with mirth.

“I’m sorry Dal, but glory…you look awful funny.” Johnny struggled to say, his words choking out in between his laughter.

Dallas just rolled his eyes, shoving a bundle of clothes into Johnny’s arms.

“Just get changed already.” he grumbled, moving so he could make his way past him, into the only cubicle.

Once the stall door snapped shut and Johnny was out of sight, Dallas fixed his gaze on Ponyboy, who was trying his best to keep a grin off his face.

“You’re not laughing over there, are you, Ponboy?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the brick.

“Course not, Dal.”

His critical gaze didn’t shift. The two of them just huddled there for a moment, cast in awkward silence, and he couldn’t be sure what intentions lurked behind Dallas’ sharp gaze.

Luckily, Johnny left the stall only a few minutes later, taking his place by the mirror to pull at the orange polo that clung uncomfortably to his arms, clearly too small. His new jeans were rolled up at the ankles, further than he usually ever would have.

“I swear, I thought they’d fit.” Dallas said, looking almost ashamed as Johnny fidgeted, running a hand through his short, uneven hair.

“They do, for the most part. They’ll do for now.” he assured him, and that seemed to soothe whatever worry was stirring in Dallas.

“Let's get going then. I’m getting itchy, hanging around here for as long as we have.”

“You were the one suggesting we stroll into a thrift store in broad daylight. You’re telling me <i>now</i> you’ve grown some sense?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s just get in the car. Put some more distance between us.”

No one had any complaints with that and they all filed out of the bathroom, trotting across the short grass until they reached the car that was starting to become their full time home. Before long, they were all piled inside and speeding off, the little town already beginning to fall away behind them, as they headed back onto the open road. The windows were open, a fresh smelling breeze wafting through the car, spinning through their hair and bringing a healthy flush to their cheeks.