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Dally should be better at this.
He was raised in the fuckin streets of New York City he should be better at this.
Out of every member of his new gang down here in Tulsa, he was the one who had seen real fights. Fights with guns and guys getting shot and guys getting killed. Sure there were fights in Tulsa but they were mostly skin, with some knives mixed in when things got extra rough. It wasn’t anything crazy in comparison and Dally had always gotten a nice ego boost from being able to handle more. Even Darrel Curtis didn’t know what to do when faced with a gun.
So why was Dally blanking?
He had admittedly been out looking for a fight. He had one too many drinks at Buck’s and wanted a good fight to get some of his energy out. It had been a rough week back at the Curtis house and Johnny’s parents were acting worse than usual and Dally just wanted to do something. He wanted to fix any of the problems they were facing or stop caring all together. But he couldn’t.
Hence why he ended up stumbling around, drunk, in the farthest reaches of the East side. He had forgotten there was a new gang that came from a town over and was slowly encroaching on their territory. They hadn’t bothered the Curtis family or any of Dally’s other connections so he hadn’t interacted with them or cared that much. Anything he knew he learned by bits and pieces of gossip around town.
He learned a lot more when he accidentally stumbled into their “claimed” territory and started a fight.
They jumped him in a back alley that Dally didn’t recognize in his inebriated state. Six on one was in no way a fair fight but they didn’t care about playing fair. Dally had gotten two of the big guys down before one of them pulled out a heater. Dally’s wasn’t loaded because of course it wasn’t that was just his luck. Darry’s speeches about trying to remain as little a threat as possible so he would stop being harassed, by cops and Soc’s alike, finally got to him so he had left it unloaded. He wasn’t particularly smart, especially when drunk, but he at least knew that this wasn’t a fight he could win. Dally had no choice but to put his hands up and blink away the blood running from his forehead down into his eye.
“What are you doing stumbling around here at night?” asked their leader, standing next to the gang member holding the gun. “You’re one of them Greasers aincha?”
“You’re in Greaser territory,” spat Dally, the liquor on his tongue making him much cockier than he should be. “‘m not in your territory, you’re in mine.”
“You want to try that again?”
The safety on the gun clicked off and Dally grinned. He wasn’t quite sure why this was funny to him right now but all he knew was that it very much was. He took a staggering step forward which drew a curious expression from their leader.
“You really want to die that bad?”
“You won’t shoot me. The cops will hear and come running,” he said with a shrug. The leader scoffed.
“The cops don’t come this far into the East side. We all know that. You got one more chance to learn some respect boy or-”
“Or else what?” Dally spread his arms wide and grinned. What the hell did he care about the gun? “What are you gonna-”
The shot rang out clear as a bell and pain tore into Dally’s shoulder. Another shot to the leg brought him to his knees with a strangled cry. He used to be a lot better at controlling the pained noises. He wasn’t sure what had happened to him.
Dally ended up crumpled on his knees, staring at the dirt and gravel ground. Blood was slowly pooling beneath him. A hand came up to clutch his shoulder and he groaned at the pain. Warmth seeped out from the bullet wound, slowly coating his fingers.
A pair of thick black work boots came to rest in front of Dally and he felt the cool metal barrel of a gun press against his hair.
“I should have shot you as soon as you crossed the line. Instead I gave you two separate chances to act right and you didn’t take them. Do you want to try for a third?”
Before Dally could respond, there was a commotion and the gun was removed. The man above him shouted and the boots turned away. Dally wasted to raise his head to see what was happening but he was exhausted. The blood loss combined with the alcohol and the mind numbing pain was making his head spin and he wasn’t sure how to fix that. Or if he cared to.
He wasn’t doing anything useful for anyone anyway. Everyone knew he wouldn’t amount to much because no Greaser did. Even the best of them who fought so hard to get out wouldn’t be able to make it. Why should Dally? Why should Dally expect anything more than a young violent death? A gun pressed to his head was what he fuckin deserved.
“-ston? Dallas!” Someone was shaking him and Dally opened his eyes (when had they closed?).
Tim Shepard was looking at him with the strangest expression on his face. It wasn’t anger, no, Dally was way too familiar with that expression. It wasn’t Tim’s exasperated amusement either. His eyebrows were drawn together, carving creases into his face. He was chewing on his bottom lip as he inspected Dally’s face.
“Jesus Dally, you just don’t know when to quit do you?” he muttered. “C’mon buddy lets get you out of here.”
Then Tim was hauling him up. One of Dally’s arms was thrown across the taller man’s shoulders, keeping him semi upright. Tim talked to him, saying things that Dally couldn’t hear. He nudged Dally forward and Dally staggered alongside Tim, trying to force his legs in to movement. He wasn’t sure if he was helping them move forward or actually hindering Tim but Tim still praised him, telling him to stay away and keep walking forward.
“Just stay with me buddy we are almost home.”
Home. The word brought thoughts of Johnny curled up on the Curtis’s couch talking quietly with Ponyboy, Darry cooking dinner, Steve and Two-Bit bitching about one thing or another.
Instead of that, Tim forced open the door to his own house, all but carrying Dally up the stairs. Dally couldn’t exactly remember how they had gotten there (Did Tim drive? Did they walk all the way back?) but that didn’t seem too important. He wasn’t disappointed that he ended up at Tim’s instead of the Curtis house.
Tim dropped Dally in the small bathtub before walking away. Dally’s eyes traced along the tiles of the bathroom. They were all cracked and fading, some with grout scraped into it to try to keep it from falling apart. Shitty solutions desperately trying to hold something together that which should just be torn down. There was something ironic about that that Dally would have laughed bitterly at if he were in a better head space. He laughed anyway.
“Don’t go crazy on me now Winston.”
Tim was back, holding a small first aid kit. Dally tried to get his eyes to focus on the taller hood but they were frighteningly fuzzy. He could make out the fact that Tim’s shape was sort of hunched over the edge of the tub. He set the white box down next to him and continued on.
“You got any attachment to that shirt?”
Dal looked down at the plain black shirt he was wearing that now had a bullet hole in it. He shook his head. It was one he stole from Soda, he thought vaguely. He was going to have to replace it otherwise Darry would lose his mind. Something to deal with if he didn’t die.
The thought struck him strangely. He could die right now. He could bleed out and was currently too incapacitated to do anything about it. if Tim hadn’t shown up he would have been dead meat. Even if that asshole hadn’t put a bullet in his brain he wouldn’t have been able to survive. His only shot would be to try to get to a phone to call Darry and even then that was a long shot. Tim was the only one keeping him alive. Why did he care to try?
Tim used his knife to hack away at his shirt and reveal his shoulder. The bullet fragments were still wedged in the hole and Tim winced for him.
“I’d give you more anesthetic but I think you’ve already had enough,” he said mildly. Then he got to work, picking up an old pair of (sanitized) tweasers.
Even with all the alcohol in his system it still hurt like a bitch. He kicked at the walls of the bathtub, trying to keep his upper body still for Tim. He was not all that successful if all the cursing was anything to go by. Still this wasn’t Tim’s first rodeo and he managed to get all the metal fragments out and dropped carelessly in a chipped plastic trashcan.
Then Tim shoved a clean sock into Dally’s mouth so he wouldn’t bite his tongue and pinned him down while Tim doused in injury in antiseptic. Dally felt sort of bad for socking Tim in the jaw while he shouted every curse word known to man but there wasn’t much he could do about that. Tim didn’t seem all that upset. His brows just furrowed further and his voice softened when he told Dally he had finished.
Tim taped down a wad of gauze before wrapping the injury securely. Then he slide down to Dally’s calf. He yanked up the hem of Dally’s jeans over the bullet wound, making Dally swear. Then he gave that injury the very same treatment.
By the end of it Dally was exhausted, eyes sliding shut despite his best efforts. There was no underlying current of adrenaline and the fear of death had mostly passed now, making him far too tired. That was until the shower was turned on, dousing him in freezing cold water.
“The hell Shepard!” spluttered Dally, the first words he had spoken to the other hood since he showed up at the scene of Dally’s murder. “What’s that for?”
“I ain’t letting you sleep on any of my furniture if you are covered in blood so get moving.”
Then Tim left the room and shut the door with a slam. Dally pulled himself up into a seated position and pulled his shirt off. He used it to mop the blood off his body, trying to do it quickly so the bandages didn’t soak through. He managed to wriggle out of his jeans and ended up collapsed on the bathroom floor in soaking boxers and hair plastered to his face.
Tim walked in, holding up some of his clothes. He helped Dally out of his boxers and into the sweatpants and helped pull the shirt on. Dally was sure this was supposed to be an unusual act of intimacy between them but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He staggered to his feet and let Tim lead him into his bedroom. Dally collapsed onto the bed without a second thought. Within minutes he was asleep, unable to think about any of the implications or meanings of what was happening. All he knew was that everything hurt a little bit less.
*******
Dally woke up the next morning next to Tim Shepard. He had to do a quick double take to remember that the usual implications of that statement didn’t apply (he and Tim had done crazy shit when they were drunk. Nothing that nature but…well Dally wouldn’t have been surprised). He staggered out of bed, collected his belongings and left, with Tim still in bed.
About halfway through the trek he realized that walking with a bullet wound in your leg was not the smartest idea and would hurt like a bitch, but he was already halfway there. He had muscled through worse. Or at least that is what he told himself when his vision started going black at the edges.
He, by some miracle, made it back to the Curtis’s house right as Darry was waking up. Darry was in the kitchen still in a rumpled sleep shirt to start breakfast. Dally crumpled on the couch, all of the energy leaching out of his bones almost immediately.
“Johnny in?” he asked. Darry gave him a weird look.
“Yeah, bunking with Pony and Soda. Nightmares something awful last night.” Dally winced but nodded. Everything was going to be alright. If he was being honest with himself (which he didn’t want to be), his nerves were still a little shaken up from almost dying the night before. They shouldn’t be, he should be used to this at this point, but he wasn’t.
“Man you look like hell, what happened to you last night?” asked Darry, in his usual caring-but-I’m-also-berating-you-for-being-stupid way. “If you needed help you could have called.”
“I made it out okay,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Just a couple of gunshot holes, nothing big.”
Darry’s eyebrows shot up and his hands stalled on the pan for a minute. “Them Soc’s running around with guns now?”
Dally waved a dismissive hand. “Na, some new gang. Bunch of blowhards.”
“Oh?” Dally didn’t miss the relief in Darry’s voice. “And how’d you pull off a daring escape? I expect you wouldn’t be able to walk with that leg.”
Dally thought for a moment, remembering the person from last night.
“Tim took me home,” he said vaguely. “Patched me up.”
Darry didn’t look surprised. “And what did he think of your injuries this morning? Did he already do the medical evaluation for me?”
“Didn’t bother to wake him,” mumbled Dally.
There was a clatter as Darry dropped one of the dishes in the sink.
“Dallas Winston don’t tell me you left this morning without telling Tim where you were going after he saved your life last night.”
If the mood were different, Dally would have made fun of the older man for sounding like a nagging mother. Fortunately, he could recognize that it was plainly not the time.
“He doesn’t care Dar, he’s probably just glad to have me out of his house.”
Dal looked over to find Darry giving him the most exasperated and expression Dal had ever seen. And that was saying something for Darry, especially now that it was evident that Pony shared his stubborn streak.
“Are you blind and stupid or just stupid?”
Dally tried to lurch to his feet but decided against it as his leg flared up. He leaned back against the couch and settled for a glare of his own.
“Those are fighting words Curtis.” Like he would be able to fight Darry and win in this condition.
“Tim Shepard cares a shit ton about you Dally and you are doing him and yourself a disservice by ignoring it. Stop fucking around and act like a decent human being.”
Dally wanted to yell at him to watch what he said but the words caught up with him too fast.
Tim Shepard genuinely caring about him hadn’t been a thought that crossed his mind. Why would he care? That didn’t make sense. But his actions didn’t either. Tim easily could have dropped him off at Darry’s last night and made him a Curtis family problem. He didn’t even have to intervene if he was on that side of town. And Dal finally realized what his expression from last night was: concern. Tim had been worried about him. Tim had saved his life.
“Yeah see,” said Darry, watching recognition dawn on Dally’s face. “Stop being dumb and-”
There was a frantic knock at the door.
“Curtis!”
Darry nodded at the door.
“What the fuck did I tell you?”
There was another knock and Darry hurried over. He threw the door open to reveal a very angry Tim.
“Where-”
“He’s in here Tim.”
Darry stepped back into he kitchen, far enough hat he couldn’t see the living room. Tim rushed in to find Dal on the couch.
“Good, you’re here,” he said, tone unreadable.
Dally rolled his eyes. “What? I forget to pay my tab?”
Dally had realized some things about him and Tim but he wasn’t about to start acting differently now. Tim glared at him.
“Yeah motherfucker now settle up.”
But instead of cussing him out or trying sock him, Tim just crumpled on the couch next to him. The other hood looked downright exhausted. Probably because he had been up half the night looking after Dally.
“I-” started Tim, haltingly. He thought for a minute then continued. “I’m glad you aren’t dead in a ditch Winston. Thought you stumbled off the find somewhere to die.”
Dally wasn’t sure how he would have taken this if Darry hadn’t given him a much needed wake up call. As it was he needed to respond appropriately. He thought for a long minute before letting out a breath.
"Sorry for disappearing on you. Wasn’t right after you helped me last night.” He winced before adding. “Thanks Tim.”
They didn’t do thank you’s or apologies. That wasn’t what they did. They didn’t speak of stuff like this. But it needed to be said. Time nodded in acknowledgement and sighed slowly.
“Thanks Dal.”
No one said anything when Tim joined them for breakfast. Darry showed Tim where the first aid kit was so Tim could give Dally’s injuries a once over before he went to work. There were a lot more unwritten rules now in their relationship and Dally didn’t want to deal with that. He liked when things were easy and clean cut as opposed to muddled like this.
But when Tim’s voice softened when he asked if Dally was okay and when he smiled softly at a stupid joke Dally made, Dally thought maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.