The Outsiders Imagines

Dallas Winston - Safety pt. 2

Five days had passed since Johnny had murdered Bob in an act of self defense, although it seemed like much longer. Ponyboy had admitted he already lost track of the days and couldn't ever tell what time it was, despite me trying to tell him to use the sun and moons positioning.

Since there wasn't much we could do, we often slept in, but today I couldn't. I was exhausted, I was so exhausted I couldn't find sleep, so using the dim moonlight, I picked up the book Johnny had gotten for Pony and started reading it.

Time passed by fairly quickly, and soon I realized the sun was starting to rise. My eyelids grew heavy with each breath I took and soon, I started to doze off. I was rudely awakened by the one and old Dallas Winston stomping in and hitting his boot against the pew that Pony fell asleep on.

Johnny sat up, rubbing his eyes as he yawned. "Hey Dal, what brings you by?" Dally walked by Johnny and messed his hair before walking over to me, extending a hand to help me off the floor.

I took his hand and stood up, straightened the jacket I'd stolen from Dal a couple years back. "Told ya I'd come check on you all in a few days, oh yeah, and there's a letter for you Ponyboy." Dally walked back over to the now blonde boy, handing him the envelope.

"Who is it from?" Ponyboy asked as he took it, ripping it open as he started to unfold and read it.

"It's from the President." Dally rolled his eyes. "Who do you think it's from? It's from Soda. I told them I didn't know where y'all were, just that y'all went to Texas, but Soda didn't believe me."

Ponyboy smiled softly as he read the letter, he knew he could count on Soda, he always could. I walked over towards the three guys, standing close to Dally.

"Whaddya say we go get something to eat?" Dal asks, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. Quickly, Johnny and Ponyboy nodded, nearly dashing out to the car that Dally had "borrowed". "Your folks asked about you, Two-Bit told them you ran off to Vegas to marry some drunken gambler."

"Oh great." I signed, shaking my head. I love Two-Bit but sometimes I swear he was out to get me. Not intentionally, it's just his way of being him.

It only took over half an hour to pull into the Dairy Queen lot, but it only took a few minutes to get some barbeque sandwich and banana splits.

"Hey, did my parents maybe ask where I was?" Johnny broke the silence from the back seat. I glanced at Dal, seeing that he wanted to tell Johnny that they had, that the cared even slightly, but I knew he wasn't going to lie.

"Of course they didn't, they don't care. None of our folks care, I mean, my old man couldn't careless about whether I was dead or alive." It wasn't necessarily true, about none of the folks caring, but I wasn't about to interrupt him right now. "But you know who does care? The gang, I mean when I told them you guys took off towards Texas, Two-Bit wanted to go after y'all."

Ponyboy glanced between Johnny and Dally, continuing to eat his sandwich as Dally looked away from Johnny, straight ahead. "Let's get back to the church to get, I'll come back next week to get y'all if everything is better."

We set off towards the abandoned church, startled to see mile high flames when we were still a good distance away. My eyes landed on a group of elementary age school children and I couldn't help but think that it's a good thing that we left.

"We're still missing some." We could hear a woman cry in the distance. Before Dally even stopped the car, Johnny had jumped out and rushed towards the burning building, Ponyboy quickly following suit.

"Hey get back here, don't go in there, your brothers are going to have my hide if anything happens to you-"

I jumped out of the car next, tossing the jacket back in the car and his attention was immediately drawn to me. "Hey, don't you dare go in there, you're supposed to stay safe-"