love ur page!! could u write smth for ponyboy??
- 🍒 anon
“click” — ponyboy x photographer!reader
JUNE 13, 1965—
the air smelled like cut grass and gasoline; it clung to your skin, sticky and sweet. you wandered through it with your little camera swinging from its strap, stickers peeling at the edges from being thumbed so much. you called it your memory catcher, because you liked the idea of keeping bits of days you’d probably forget.
you weren’t looking where you were going, as usual. you’d pause at whatever caught your eye: a crushed soda can gleaming like silver under a streetlamp, a baby blue bike left upside-down, the crooked letters on a “no parking” sign. click. click. click.
every snap was a heartbeat, a little secret only you and the camera shared.
you turned a corner near the DX station, gum cracking softly between your teeth, and that’s when you saw him — a boy sitting on the curb with a notebook on his knee, pencil moving quick like he was trying to catch a thought before it ran away. his hair caught the last light, and his sneakers were scuffed in the exact way you liked.
without thinking (which was kind of your thing), you raised the camera and clicked.
the sound made him glance up. his eyes were a green-gold you couldn’t name, and they landed on you like you were caught doing something wrong. he blinked once, then frowned just enough to make you nervous.
“hey…” his voice was soft but steady. “you just take my picture?”
you froze mid-step, camera pressed to your chest like a kid with a teddy bear. “oh— um— yeah? kinda? sorry!” the words tripped over each other. “i do that sometimes. you looked… i dunno… cool. like… poet cool.” you winced at yourself. poet cool? really?
his eyebrow ticked up. “poet cool?”
“you know what i mean,” you said quickly, waving your free hand. “like… you’re sitting there writing stuff. i dig it.”
a corner of his mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile. he shut the notebook and stood, dusting off his jeans. “you always take pictures of strangers?”
you shrugged, playing with the strap on your camera. “only when they look like a poem. which isn’t a lot of people, in case you’re wondering.”
that earned you a real smile, small but there. “you’re not from around here, are you?”
you tilted your head, ribbon slipping from your hair. “what gave me away? the camera? or the wandering around, looking all lost?”
“all of it,” he said, and his voice softened a little.
the two of you stood there for a beat, the evening pressing close — heat lifting from the asphalt, the hum of a bug zapper somewhere, soda machines clinking in the distance. your camera hung heavy at your side, but your fingers itched to lift it again.
“what’s your name?” he asked.
“(your name),” you said.
“ponyboy,” he said.
you smiled, testing it. “ponyboy.” it tasted like candy on your tongue. “mind if i take another?”
he hesitated just long enough to make you think he’d say no, then gave a tiny shrug. “go ahead.”
click.
this time when the shutter went, he didn’t flinch. you wound the film with a soft sound, and the moment slipped into your camera forever. you didn’t know it yet, but it was going to be one of your favorite shots — the boy on the curb, the sky bleeding orange behind him, and you somewhere just off-frame, grinning like you’d stumbled into a secret.