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It didn’t snow often in Tulsa. So when it did, it became a big deal.
Tim was—for some reason—hanging out with the Curtis gang. He had originally come by to give Darrel back a piece of Christmas decor that Curly stole for absolutely no reason at all. He just ended up… not leaving.
Sometime while he was there, it began to snow.
“Holy shit. It’s snowing.” Tim finds himself saying, glancing out the kitchen’s window. The little one—his name starts with a ‘J’, Tim never cared to learn his name because he wasn’t half the threat the rest of the gang was—muttered something that sounded mocking under his breath.
“What was that?” Tim askes, turning to him and raising a brow. The boy lifts his head, glances around, and then looks back at Tim. “Aren’t you a little old to be excited about snow?” He says, the corners of his mouth tilting up in a smirk.
Tim could already feel his face heating up from embarrassment. It didn’t help that the two other people in the kitchen—Dallas and Darrel—started laughing just loud enough to be heard.
Tim found himself stepping outside a second later. He can’t help but smirk secretly to himself as he gathers a decent amount into his hands. He peeks his head back into the room for just a second.
Ponyboy—Little Curtis, as Tim called him—whispered something to his pal. The boy turned—Tim chucked the snowball at him the second he was facing his way. The room was silent for a second.
Johnny was actually the first to laugh, wiping some off his face. The others followed—Tim could very much see Dallas glaring at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“The hell was that for?” Dallas whispers to him. Tim—still just barely leaning inside the building—shurgged his shoulders. “Just a little joke. He had it coming.” Dallas begins to open his mouth—Tim shuts the door before he can.
“Jesus!” He gasps, turning around to see the younger standing right behind him. Tim hadn’t seen him sneak off. And he would’ve had to be quick to get there that fast. And there were no footprints following him. The hell?
“You should probably apologize.” The boy—Johnny! That’s his name—says, a sweet looking smile on his face that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“You have some on your nose.” Tim says simply, already turning to walk away. “Apologize.” The boy repeats—he doesn’t even attempt to stop him, yet Tim pauses anyway. His tone is so cold—like all humor from before was ripped away.
Whenever Dallas spoke about him—which was …very often—he always said Johnny was incapable of sticking up for himself. Tim certainly isn't seeing that.
“No.” He says, holding back his own smirk.
The front door opens a second later. “Johnny, there you are! Get back inside, it's freezing.” Darrel says, already tugging him in the door. “What are you even doing out here?”
“Revenge.” Johnny says—he says it in a joking tone but something about it makes a chill go down his spine.
“Maybe you guys should have a snowball fight.” Darry says in the same tone,heading back inside as well. Tim can see the boy smiling at him creepily from the doorway as it closes.
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Tims not entirely sure why—but he does end up showing up to the lot the next day.
Obviously he isn’t going to have an honest to god snowball fight with a fifteen year old, he’s not crazy. He actually did come to apologize—in the way any Shepard apologizes, anyway.
He pulls open the gate, shaking some of the snow off of his hands. Upon closer inspection, there’s nothing there but a single snowman. As impressive as the size of it is, all he can do is sigh and turn to leave.
There’s a lock on the gate—like, an honest to god lock with chains and shit. He’s lived in Tulsa for 17 years and he’s NEVER seen that gate locked. Also—he just opened it—not even a minute ago.
Just as he turns around, someone actually jumps out of the snowman. He doesn't even see who it is before he’s pelted over and over again by snowballs. He stumbles backward completely out of shock—his back hits the the gate and he falls forward onto the freshly salted cement.
Even as he’s on the ground, whoever it is keeps tossing snowballs at him. They have to have rocks in them or something—because they hurt . All he can do is bring his hands up to his head and curl in on himself.
The person doesn’t stop too long after—though Tim’s sure they just ran out of snowballs.
“Jesus, I can’t feel my fingers.” A voice says—Tim blearily opens his eyes and glances up at them—
HOLY SHIT— JOHNNY CADE?!
“Hey, Tim, Maybe you should ice that!” The boy laughs, kicking him once in the chest for good measure while pointing at his face. When Tim reaches up and touch’s his face—he realizes that his nose is quite literally bleeding.
He reaches out to try and grab the boy’s leg—he can’t be seriously bested by some little psycho kid—but Johnny rips his leg away and actually steps on his hand. Luckily he doesn’t do it hard enough to break, but enough so that Tim has to put his hand away before he does.
Tim hasn’t been beaten that badly by a Curtis member ever in his entire life. Even Dallas usually stopped when he didn’t fight back—but that little freak just kept wailing on him. It was bad enough that Tim had to lie there, defenseless, to gather up the strength to stand.
He finally pulled himself to stand after a few moments. It’s not even that he was hurt—it was the utter shock.
Tim makes it back into the house not long after. “Jeez, what happened to you?” Curly asks, looking over the couch to look at him. “Johnny Cade.” He says simply, heading to the kitchen for ice.
Curly laughs—he doesn’t stop until he notes that Tim isn’t joining in. “You’re joking.” He says, furrowing his brows. “I don’t think he’s even capable of getting into a fight.”
“Me either.”
“Even if he did try to fight you—you’re seriously saying he beat your ass?” Curly knows Johnny more than he does—but he seems to think just like Dallas does.
“It was like—a fucking ambush, man, I don’t know what you want me to say.” Tim says defensively—he’s slowly getting more and more embarrassed that he got his shit rocked by a big half his size.
“Johnny Cade ambushed you?” Curly asks, unimpressed. “Have you had anything to drink?”
“No, I haven’t had anything to drink you little shit. ” Tim barks, acutely aware of the promise he made to Angela about staying sober for Christmas. “That little freak hopped out of a fucking snowman and threw snowballs at me!”
“Snowballs?” Curly smirks. “Yes—With rocks!” Tim yells, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation. “Mhm.” Curly hums, unimpressed. “Just make sure you don’t do any driving—“
“Fuck you, Curly.” Tim says finally, storming off to his room.
“Watch out for any flying snowballs!” Curly yells back to him, ignoring the jacket tossed at his head.
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It was only a few days later—the effect of the first attack was wearing off. He’s almost a hundred percent sure he imagined the whole thing.
Johnny Cade? Attacking him? With snowballs and rocks? Fat chance.
Tim throws his jacket onto the counter as he comes into the house, shaking the snow out of his hair while grumbling. “Hey, Curly, I thought I told you to shovel the damn driveway.” He scolds, lifting his head up to look at the boy.
Curly was watching TV—he didn’t even turn to look at Tim. He’s usually a little shut about being told what to do, but he knows better than to ignore him.
“Hello? Earth to Curly Shepard.” Tim furrows his brow, walking up to the boy. He takes his head in his hands and shakes it back and forth lightly when he doesn’t respond.
Suddenly, Curly turns—and holy shit it’s not Curly.
Johnny-Fucking-Cade reaches up and smashes a snowball into the side of his head hard enough to send him tumbling to the ground. He and Curly both have pretty long hair—curly and black, it’s a miracle nobody ever commented on how similar it was.
Johnny jumps over the couch and manages to keep him on the ground simply by pelting his in the face with snowballs—over, and over, and over again.
“Johnny!” Tim yells, bringing his hands up to cover his face when the familiar sting comes back. “Cut that out!”
Johnny just laughs, hitting him with a few more before he just dumps the rest on him. He manages to quite literally jump over him—narrowly missing Tim’s hand trying to grab him.
“That was fun, let’s do it again sometime!” Johnny says, already at the door.
Tim doesn’t like what that alludes to.
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Every single time Johnny gets him, he’s caught off guard. So this time around he’s sure to be ready.
When he enters the Curtis house to pick up Curly, he keeps a tightly-packed snowball tucked safely in his hand. Nobody seems to notice that he’s shown up, doing their own thing.
He decides to get the upper hand.
Johnny stands from the couch—he passes by the group and it looks like he’s heading towards the bedrooms. Tim aims for his head, throwing it as hard as can—he used to be on the baseball team, so god knows it’ll hurt.
And, he fucking misses.
He misses entirely and manages to hit the window beside him and shatter it. The only thing stopping Johnny from being covered in shards of broken glass is Darrel Curtis tugging him back.
The whole room is silent as they all turn to stare at him—wide eyed and mouths agape. Tim’s fight or flight response kicks it—usually it’s fight, Tim Shepard doesn’t back down goddammit. But yeah he’s gonna fly like the damn Wright brothers today.
He makes it all the way to the front gate before he’s tugged back by the collar. Darrel Curtis glares down at him when he turns. “Tim, can I talk to you?” He asks, a dark look in his eyes.
“No you cannot.” Tim says frantically, already trying to run off again. Darrel doesn’t do much to stop him except for keeping his hand on his collar, which happens to be quite effective.
And yeah, maybe picking a fight with a guy that has over 1000 pounds of man bowing to his every whim because he’s such an Angel maybe wasn’t Tim’s… best idea ever.
Darrel drags him to the side of the house, crossing his arms and glaring down at him. “Tim,” he begins. “What the hell was that? You could have seriously hurt him!”
“Oh, yeah? So it’s okay when he—“ Tim pauses, seeing a little pair of black eyes peeking out from the corner of the house. Darrel turns to see where he’s looking. “Johnny? Is everything alright?” He askes in a gentle tone.
“Y-yeah Darry, I’m alright.” The boy says, fully coming to the side of the house while giving them both a soft smile. “I just—well, yesterday I threw a snowball at Tim on his way home from work. It’s not his fault and—“
Holy shit, this kid's a good actor. He genuinely seemed so innocent and worried—If Tim wasn’t the one being attacked he’d believe him too.
“Johnny, go back inside, okay? None of this is your fault.” Darry says in that same soft voice he only used with Johnny. Johnny looked sad while Darry turned away—but once he wasn’t looking he made sure to give Tim an evil little smirk.
Johnny walked off a moment later, before Tim could say anything.
“Seriously, Tim? That’s the kid you decided to hurl things at?” Darry askes, incredulous. Tim opens and closes his mouth a few times before he gets any words out. “You don’t get it—that little freak has been terrorizing me! He’s been chasing me around with snowballs and breaking in—”
Darrel smacks him right on the cheek before he can say anything more. “Don’t you dare call him a freak.” The older snarls, face set in a deep scowl. “Let’s say, in some alternate universe, he is chasing you around with snowballs. So what? I’ve played football with him, Tim, he cannot throw that hard.”
“Tell that to my fucking nose!”
“He’s a kid, Tim. Even if he was doing any of this—which he isn’t —he probably just thinks two are playing around.” Tim thinks that’s fucking comical—Johnny is exactly two years younger than him, they aren’t that far apart in age. “What you did was dangerous and inappropriate. You could have seriously hurt someone.
Tim opens his mouth to once again defend his honor, but Darry interrupts.
“I don't want you coming to my house anymore, okay? Get a fucking hold of yourself.” Darry says with a sense of finality, walking off before Tim could say anything more.
He actually did end up listening—he didn’t go anywhere near that house or their gang. Partly, because he’s embarrassed by the fact that to everyone else—he’s going after someone years younger than him, half his size, incredibly sweet, and genuinely likable… all because of one comment about him being childish. Also because he was terrified that the boy would tear him apart Jack the Ripper style.
He gets home that night with a gift on his porch step. He glances around, seeing nobody and no foot-marks in the snow. He picks it up and surveys the outside. ‘Hey Timmy, Merry Christmas. Open immediately, Love Syl.” Read the little note attached to the corner.
Sylvia is Dallas’s on and off girlfriend—she’s usually with Tim when they are off.
He chuckles and slowly pulls off the bow. He has to pry the top of the box open—when he finally gets it open, he’s met with a flash of white and the feeling of something cold hitting his face.
Upon closer inspection—Johnny, because who else would it be—had managed to build some kind of mini catapult that tossed a fucking snowball into his face the second he opened it.
He could hear maniacal laughter to his left—when he looked, after wiping his face off, he could see Johnny Cade actually doubled over laughing at him. Tim drops the box and starts chasing him—Johnny bolts.
And, for having short legs, the kid can run very very fast. But Tim got a head start and also is incredibly angry. He catches him at the lot, tackling the boy to the ground.
Even when he’s on top of the boy with his hands fisted in his shirt, he’s still fucking laughing.
“Dude, seriously , I surrender.” Tim says, getting off of him. Johnny takes a moment to catch his breath—not from running, but from laughing because he’s actually crazy. “I don’t accept your surrender.” He says simply, pushing himself to stand.
“Seriously, cut it out.” Tim repeats, standing as well. He’s a full head taller than the boy and he still feels intimidated.
“One condition.” Johnny smiles.
“Anything.”
“I want you to admit that you’re a childish little asshole and the only reason anyone hangs out with you is because they’re worried you’ll attack them like the hopped-up adrenaline junkie you are.”
Tim is actually taken aback. Most by the words, but Johnny says it so casually that if he didn’t speak English he’d think he was asking for directions. “You’re a psychopath.” Tim says, furrowing his brow.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Johnny says, shrugging his shoulders and walking off. Tim stands there, staring at the spot he was just in, for about 30 minutes before he leaves.
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He didn’t see Johnny for a week. He’s sure the boy is planning something—probably just waiting until he lets his guard down. He’s looking over his shoulder more often and he's not sure if he's hearing things or there actually is someone walking around his house at night.
Its the thursday before Christmas and the Shepards decide to go to a diner for dinner. They usually don’t even eat together—but it feels wrong being so separated during this time of year.
Curly is racing out the door—the place stops selling milkshakes after 9pm and it is currently 8:45. “Woah.” He mutters, standing frozen in the doorway. “What is it?” Angela askes, looking out the door and then having the same reaction.
Tim shoves them both out of the way to look for himself—stopping dead in his.
Snowmen—big ones—lined up one by one along the front lawn. “You weren’t joking.” Curly says from beside him with raised brows, glancing around the array of identical snowmen.
Angela just rolls her eyes, making an attempt to walk to the car. Tim grabs her arm tugging her back. “We oughta be a little more careful, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, Jack Frost might jump us.” Curly adds from behind her. Tim feels his cheeks heat up and just groans. Even now neither of them believe him—which, fair. If anyone is else told him that Johnny Cade was terrorizing him to the point of psychological torture…. Yeah, he wouldn’t believe them either.
Tim watches from the door as they both walk to the car and get in. He knows he eventually has to move—but atleast the boy is kind enough to not attack his innocent siblings. Well, not innocent, the asshole-ery runs through their blood.
He takes his first step off the porch and towards the hoard. Luckily, there’s so many—his siblings can’t really see him duck out of their way and definitely punch through a few. He doesn’t remember even being this scared in his life—which is, truly , saying a lot.
By the time he makes it to the car—his hands and forearms covered in snow, and he’s breathing heavily enough to fog up the windows. “You are actually pathetic.” Angela laughs at him from the passenger seat
“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Tim grumbles, putting the car in gear while backing out. He really doesn’t get what he’s so scared of—he only got genuinely hurt once, right? Not to mention that if anything truly bad happened he could just beat the kid’s ass—
Holy shit he’s on the roof.
Upon backing out—he takes a single glance back at that house. Johnny-fucking-Cade is on the roof, sitting with his legs crossed and leaning on the chimney. He swears he sees the kid wink at him—right before he hops down to the back of the house, out of sight.
“What’re you staring at?” Curly asks from the backseat, leaning forward to look out the windshield. Tim just sighs, hauling ass out of there before he decides to chase after them or something.
Yeah, he’s not gonna mess with that kid again.