Chapter Text
Out of all the things Dallas Winston thought he’d be doing before he turned eighteen, lying in an alleyway in New York while bleeding out from a stab wound wasn't at the top of his list. Of course, it wasn't the kind of thing that he could choose to just walk away from, so he was unfortunately running pretty low on options. If he were anyone else, he would probably be complaining about being cold and scared and alone. He wasn’t a baby, though, so he only briefly considered it. Of course he was fine. Everything was going to be fine. He was always fine… but glory, the gash in his side burned like hellfire, and he hadn’t seen any signs of life past a singular mangy-looking rat, and it was raining hard.
He hadn't thought he was in any danger tonight– he had actually been proud of himself, for once. Maybe that was a mistake, but he’d done something he thought was good: he'd helped out this kid he’d seen around lately. She had been hanging around the gang, so he guessed she must have known someone, but he hadn't paid it much mind until he’d heard a muffled scream from behind the picture house when he was trying to bum a smoke off a couple of guys who’d just come out of a movie. It wouldn't have been something that perturbed him, only it sounded like a kid– a little girl, at that. Cursing himself, he’d run to go check it out, stumbling into a circle of boys. A few of them had blades drawn, surrounding this poor kid as the tallest of the bunch held her up by the scruff of her neck. A crumpled dollar bill was clutched in her fist.
If it hadn't been a kid, Dally would have let it go. Stealing was fine unless you got caught, those were words he lived by, but he wasn't going to stand there and let the poor kid get roughed up or worse. A couple punches got thrown, but he pulled her out of there and took her to Dairy Queen, of all places. She’d kept a good grip on that dollar bill and used it to buy an ice cream the size of her head, which she wolfed down while he just sat and watched.
A little later on, she had told him that her name was Carly, and it was what he was still thinking about when the same boys had jumped him to get him back.
Better me than Carly.
He looked beside himself at the puddle of blood pooling on the cold concrete, feeling weak and altogether too small for it to all have come from him. Dally hated feeling weak and small; it was the same feeling he’d told himself he’d never experience again after living with his father. This was starting to feel scarier, somehow– his father would at least leave him alone after a while, when he got bored or tired, and Dally had a sinking feeling that this sensation wasn’t going to leave him alone any time soon.
The cold damp air burned his throat, and he coughed, sending spasms through his chest. His wound seethed in pain and a wave of vertigo overtook him, blurring his vision into dizzy pinwheels. He was hurt, he was trembling, and he could feel the energy draining from his body.
There in the alley, with no one around to notice, Dallas Winston sobbed.
He didn’t want to die. Not yet. Not like this. He was the master of his own life, he had worked so hard for it, his death was supposed to be just another thing that happened as he chose why, where and when. With another painful cough, he curled in on himself, hugging his ribs even as they screamed with pain. His mouth tasted like iron and black spots dotted his vision. This wouldn’t be the end, he told himself, near-delirious as he sunk deeper into the inky darkness. This
wouldn’t be
the
.
He woke up falling.
Endless white light surrounded him, and for a moment, he thought this was the afterlife, the light at the end of the tunnel that everyone always warned never to go towards– at least, until he hit the ground and someone spoke.
“Easy there, don’t hurt yourself any more than you already have,” the sweet voice soothed as he clutched desperately at the white blank emptiness surrounding him, pushing through the ache in his screaming muscles to try and fail to sit up. “Don’t sit up yet, you aren’t quite healed. You can rest. You’re safe now.”
If there was one thing Dally was proud of himself for, it was his ability to remain articulate during a crisis. “Who the FUCK are you?!”
The unseen person laughed, a sound like flower petals blowing through the breeze in early June. “I’m here to help you, Dallas. I don’t think you were dealt a fair hand– I think that you deserve another chance. Don’t you agree?”
Another chance. His heart leapt at the idea.
“So I’m not dead?” The pain in his body subsided as he spoke, replaced by a pleasantly warm tingling feeling, and he finally sat up. “Are you Jesus?”
“I am not Jesus, no. You’re in-between,” the voice explained, tone tinged with amusement. “You fought tooth and nail to stay alive, now, didn’t you?” From anyone else it would have been patronizing, but something about that voice lulled Dally just enough that he relaxed.
“Why am I here and not in the alley?” Where is ‘here’?, he refrained from adding.
A sound like a gentle gust of wind or a quiet sigh lifted strands of platinum hair into his eyes, and he brushed them away. “Because, Dallas, I need your help. You’re the only person who can do this for me.”
He chewed it over for a minute. “The only one, huh?” He wasn’t going to let some disembodied voice win him over that easily. “What do you need from me so bad you were willing to save my life?”
Warmth curled around his body like the upturned corner of a sickly-sweet smirk. “I need you to watch over a boy.” He cocked his head, about to ask a question when the entity continued. “Have you ever heard of a guardian angel?”
“I ain’t wearin’ no dress, and don’t even think about givin’ me a harp,” Dally scoffed.
“Not that sort of angel,” the voice corrected kindly. “Think of it more like… a do-over, with just a few simple conditions. You’ll get to live out the rest of your life however you like as long as you just do me this one favour.”
It wasn’t a bad offer, he had to admit. There was no loophole, no obvious flaw, nothing keeping him chained down– but he knew there had to be a catch. Everything came with a catch. “Who is this guy anyway?”
The invisible voice hummed. “I’m glad that you asked. When you wake up, you will remember all the important information, but I suppose I can tell you this one thing: his name is Johnny Cade.” The emphasis stressed on the name was enough to send a shiver down Dally’s spine. “He’s a good child, about your age. The things he needs protecting from, similarly to you, are out of his control.”
A kid. Ugh. But at least he sounded like he could pretty easily be kept out of trouble. Dally sighed. “Alright, fine. Where do I sign?”
The white room blinked out of existence, and the entity’s voice echoed in the dark.
“You just did.”
And then he was falling again.