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Dallas Winston is many things, but a coward isn’t one of them. Still, he can never bring himself to confront Ponyboy every time he sees the younger boy glaring at him with an intensity that almost scares him.
He knew the younger wasn’t his biggest fan, but in recent months he’s been glaring at Dally like he wants to take him apart limb from limb. As of now, the limb the boy wants to rip seems to be his hand. Or maybe he just wants Dally’s cigarette. Either way, Dally gets the feeling he’s doing something wrong with every movement.
“...Did you want a cigarette?” Ponyboy startles from where he was hunched over his journal and glaring at Dally.
“Huh? Oh- No, I’m good, Dally.”
Ponyboy’s looks get subtler after that, but Dally’s still uncomfortable. Maybe next time he lights up, he’ll give the kid one too.
Pony, Dally, and Johnny are at the drive-in, but Pony’s just glaring at Dally instead of watching the movie. He’s scribbling furiously in his journal, and Dally vaguely wonders if he’s writing shit about him. Johnny leans over and murmurs something in Pony’s ear which makes him go red, and Dally can’t help but cackle. The kid’s face gets so damn red, it’s ridiculous. He teases him the rest of the night, and makes a point of trying to get the kid red again.
Despite the teasing, Pony shuts his journal and doesn’t glare at Dally again for the rest of the night. Dally has no clue what he was doing that was more annoying than the teasing, but maybe Pony just didn’t like the fact that Dally was - for once - paying attention to the movie.
Today, Dally decided not to dance around the subject. When he saw Pony hunched over his journal, glaring at Dally, he rushed to put the kid in a headlock and pester him about his staring problem. Just before Pony shut the journal, Dally caught a glimpse on his St.Christopher pendant, drawn onto the pages in careful charcoal strokes.
In the end, Dally does dance around the subject, choosing to follow Pony around and tease him, instead of confronting him. Dally does watch him a little closer, however.
Contrary to popular belief, Dally is capable of subtlety. So, when he peeks over at Pony’s sketchbook-once-thought-to-be-a-journal, Pony doesn’t notice. And Dally sees.
Drawings of a St.Christopher necklace and a skull ring. Slender fingers curled around a cigarette. A split lip. A mean grin. Long ungreased hair. Sharp blue eyes. Sharper-than-normal teeth. Shoulders covered by a leather jacket. Bruised knuckles, still bleeding after a fight. A silhouette leaning against the railing of the porch.
Ponyboy doesn’t dislike Dally as Dally once thought. He’s not glaring at him. He’s admiring.
And Dally observes back. Starts carrying around scrap pieces of paper to write down things Pony says, like ‘I can’t stand anything other than Kools, I dunno how yall like other brands,’ or, ‘I’ve been wanting to try Faygo recently.’ And if Pony starts finding redpop Faygo in the fridge, and Kools slipped into his backpack, Dally doesn’t bring it up.