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This is not the first time Buck has caught Dallas crying. Hell, it's not even the first time he's caught him crying over that damn book. Unfortunately, this time is too different.
They buried the Cade kid a few months ago. Dallas went and tried to get himself killed, survived, and now rots away in bed. It's the biggest slump Buck has ever seen him in, and he can't even blame the kid.
He should've known he'd go right back to that damn book.
The copy he owns his worn from a decade of re-reads. You can barely even read the title anymore, it's so beat up. Pieces of colorful paper stick out from all directions, pointing you towards hundreds of different details in the story. Everywhere that there was once blank space is now covered in writing, insights that changed and evolved as Dallas grew.
It's the most true record of Dallas Winston that there's ever been, or ever will be.
Over the years, Buck has heard and comforted Dallas whenever tears came from his rereads. How the hell you can still cry over a book you've read eighty times, he will never know.
Only, this time, things are different. Johnny's death is raw in all their minds, and no one is taking it as hard as Dallas.
Clearly, given how he's stuffed his face into his pillow, and yet Buck can still hear his sobs through the wall.
"Kid?"
Buck pushes away his instinct to ask if he's okay. It's pretty fuckin' obvious how he's doing.
Dallas doesn't ackowledge him at first. Then, he slowly lifts his face from the bed. He looks a mess. His entire face is blotchy red, and completely wet with tears.
For some reason, he only cries harder when he sees Buck. He full sits up, both his hands reaching out to the older man in the most heartbreakingly childish display.
Buck rushes to his side, pulling the boy to his chest.
As soon as his arms wrap around him, Dallas stops. Then, he wails. He buries his face in Buck's chest and screams. Not the typical nightmare screams, those Buck can handle. What he can't handle are the broken, gut-wrenching screams that come only from grief.
Buck doesn't know what to do. What can he do? If he could bring Johnny Cade back from the dead, if just so this kid..his kid, wasn't in so much pain, he would.
But he can't.
No one can.
Dallas screams into his chest. He wets Buck's shirt with his tears and his spit. Throughout it all, Buck holds him tightly.
At the end of Little Women, Beth knows she will die. Chapter after chapter, she plays with the idea, rolls the word 'death' on her tongue until she can say it without her voice cracking. As the people around her break down, Beth finds peace.
Buck glances over, and sees the passage that damn book is open to.
“I was never like the rest of you, making plans about the great things I'd do, I never saw myself as anything much, just shy, stupid little Beth, who's only use was at home. Why does everyone want to go away? I love being home, but I don't like being left behind. Now I'm the one going ahead, No one can stop God if He wants me, But I'm afraid I shall be homesick for you...even in heaven.”
A letter lays next to it. The front has two words in bold, messy writing.
Stay Gold
Dallas wails.