gonna be chaotic: tim/dal/pony where they all have separate complicated feelings for each other. bonus if canon still happens.
dal/pony, established relationship in 1975
me 2 me: u cannot write a chapter fic abt the first situation...... (or can i)
here r some hopefully adequate fills <3
i.
one. Iâve never been the doting type and that ainât going to change. Youâre a real piece of work and I never thought youâd be the type to get me crawling on my knees, and not even in the way youâd like best. I can almost see why you keep an eye on the kid like you doâthough he ainât much of a kid no more, eighteen now and as aimless as you and me were around that age. Donât know if it burns more to know it ainât me that youâre watching, or know exactly who it is instead.
two. Itâs like it happened overnightâshit, I can barely figure it out myself. One second Iâm trying to figure out how the fuck so many kids wound up dead in a week and next itâs been four years and youâre all grown up. I spent a lot of those years fucked up but this all just seemed to hit me suddenly. I know you noticedâdonât know what you think about it, and it ainât like it should be a surprise by now, the way everyone in this goddamn city knows your name. What do you think about these days?
three. None of itâs been easy. I wake up every day hoping it was a dream, mornings like molasses but my nightmares all the same. I donât have an answer. I watched Johnny die. I ainât been the same since. The whispers ainât new but neither is this. You⊠both of you. Iâm trying to wrap my head around it but I canât; what do I know? I dragged myself out of this city and a year later Iâm back anyway, not any better for it. Lately I feel like prey⊠and I think either of you would prove me right.
ii.
ten years to the day it all started, you find yourself in a new city. you arrived late the night before, just before dawn, and you wake up as the sun reaches its peak over las vegas. next to you the bed is empty already, but the curtains are pulled back, and you follow the path of sunlight.
dallas at twenty-seven is different than at seventeen. in the months after it happened he disappeared, and when he came back it wasnât permanent. later, you learn he turned to hustling, and it wasnât until a chance encounter while you attempted a college degree that he finally learned to stick around at least in some capacity.
you, too, have come a long way, though perhaps you find it more difficult to trace the changes in your own face. today, dally stands on the patio of the hotel room and smokes cigarette after cigaretteâyou have proof both in the smoke that wafts in through the open sliding door and in the ashtray that even from this side of the room appears full.
you donât bother pulling real clothes on when you get up, just brush your teeth before you join him outside, and he doesnât look at you when he says, âsleep alright?â
âyeah.â he grabs your wrist when you reach out to take his cigarette, eyes alight with something indecipherable. ten years now since bob sheldon was killed, and in a few days more ten years since johnny died. there are other things between now and then; between the moment bob was stabbed to the moment you threw your body over dallyâs after a single bullet brought him to his knees.
the scar is barely noticeable, though youâve memorized it: a silver slash, no memory of the blood that spilled while you clutched at the artery a bullet nicked. someone else might call it a miracle; you call it getting even.
today he almost smiles before finally letting go of you, his touch a brand even after all these years. as you breathe the smoke he says, âtime to hit the streets,â and when he claps a hand to your back he doesnât move it afterwards. yesterday feels like a memoryâand anything before that, like a dream.
