Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The gunshots rang out like firecrackers, loud and sharp, echoing down the darkened street. It seemed like it would be the end of Dallas Winston, and everyone thought it was—Ponyboy Curtis included. But fate had different plans that night.
Dallas didn’t die.
He got shot, sure, bleeding out on the cold asphalt outside a convenience store he’d tried to rob with an unloaded gun. Police swarmed the scene, lights flashing red and blue, voices shouting in chaos. But when the heat settled, Dallas Winston was still breathing. Barely.
A bullet lodged in his thigh, another just beneath his ribs. His collarbone fractured from the fall, and internal bleeding had nearly taken him out more than once. The hospital staff weren’t optimistic at first.
But Ponyboy was.
From the moment he found out Dallas had survived, he made it his mission to be there. Every day after school, he’d head to the hospital, undeterred by the police officer stationed outside Dallas’s room. The officer’s job was to keep people like Ponyboy out.
Ponyboy would sit in the hallway just outside the door, his back against the wall, school books scattered around him. At first, he asked politely, hopeful. “Can I see him, just for a minute?” The answer was always no.
So he stopped asking. Instead, he began waiting.
Hours passed. On school days, Ponyboy rushed to the hospital as soon as the final bell rang, sitting there until curfew. On weekends, he arrived early, bringing snacks and thermoses of coffee, books, and blankets—everything he thought might make the time pass easier, anything that made it clear he wasn’t leaving.
After about a week and a half, the cop stopped arguing. Maybe he felt sympathy. Maybe he was just tired of repeating himself. One day, he looked at Ponyboy with a long, worn-out sigh and said, “Ten minutes. Don’t touch anything.”
Ponyboy stepped into the room like it was a sacred place. It was too white, too quiet. Dallas lay still, pale against the stark sheets, an oxygen tube in his nose and a dull scowl on his face. Machines beeped in the background, a slow, dragging heartbeat.
Dallas squinted at him. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”
Ponyboy sat in the chair beside the bed, trying to play it cool. “Just thought I’d drop by and see how you were doing. Brought your book back. You finished ‘Of Mice and Men,’ right?”
Dallas huffed. “Tch. Don’t matter.”
But he didn’t ask Pony to leave.
So Pony stayed.
That first visit was awkward. Dally didn’t say much—just grunted or muttered under his breath. But Pony stayed anyway, reading softly or scribbling in a sketchbook, only looking up when Dallas groaned or shifted.
The next day, he came back. And the next.