SEXUALITY + GENDER AND PRONOUNS: BI + HE/HIM TRANSBOY
FC: TROYE SIVAN
PARTNER: JULIET KELLY
"My girlfriend asked me to read it with her a couple years ago, it's kind of a tradition of ours. When Johnny died...I don't know, I just couldn't get it out of my head for a while. I still think about it sometimes."
Originally from Montana, Romeo moved to Tulsa when his mother got a job there.
His relationship with his parents is strained because they aren't very accepting :(.
Juliet still lives in Montana. They're in a long-distance relationship!! Also they're so in love it's sickening. Might as well have invented puppy love.
Finally drew the trash man!! So here he is in all his petty as fuck glory. This guy literally thought that the appropriate reaction to his fiance dumping him is to try to ruin not only her life but the lives of her friends and family, literally attempted murder and finally hiring a deranged witch to destroy his hometown. To say that this man... overreacted would be a bit of an understatement.
Now his family is pretty much exiled from Woodcrest, his mother is in jail because she took the fall for her son and husband, and his dad’s dead cause... well he killed him, Romeo uses the seemingly endless family funds to conduct human experiments on people that make “Amensia: A machine for pigs” look tame! ...Yeah, not a very nice guy. XD Well, at least he has a casino now and a new partnership.
Daisy: Allison… Why did you draw a pentagram on the floor?
Allison: Your text told me to satanize the house before you returned.
Daisy:
Daisy: I wrote sanitize, Alice.
✮⋆˙ I don't smoke except for when I'm missing you...
Romeo Moore hcs!!
-- General hcs!!
He's trans and bi, but it's the 60s so he's just confused asf
That title is NOT reflection of real life, Romeo is a big smoker. He would only smoke occasionally in Montana but after he moved to Tulsa he would smoke whenever he was stressed (aka all the time)
Only full names people when he's worried or teasing.
And normally his worry comes off as anger.
"Ponyboy Curtis, what the fuck are you doing!"
Loves nicknames. If they're name can be shortened, he's shortening it. If they're name can't be shortened? Be prepared for a nickname of some sort
Called Cocktail 'Cock' on accident once and thought it was peak comedy, remembers it when he wants to laugh
His love language is deadass checking if people are alive. Will put his hands on their neck or chest sometimes to make sure they're breathing (if he knows they'll be okay with it.) The gang makes fun of him but he IS NOT risking that shit after Johnny and Dally.
Used to be really loud and abrasive back in Montana but quieted down after he fled to Tulsa. He kind of misses speaking his mind but he can never find it within himself to do it anymore.
If you catch him off guard. Major potty mouth.
"Jesus fucking christ! Oh fuck...scared the shit out of me."
info: Not a lot of a dialoge until the end since this is mostly a retrospective tbh. The tense is all out of wack idek what happened
He's seen it on the news. Juliet is dead. Some fuckers tried to mug her in New Jersey and things went sour.
He'd heard it on the tv while he was doing the dishes in the Curtis house. He'd stormed out, hands still wet and... made some desicions he isn't the proudest of.
When he was done and realised he only felt worse and more like a deplorable person. He'd gone to the lot, put himself somwhere nobody who was passing by could see and freaked out a little more.
He only thought of the place because the gang mentioned Johnny'd sleep there when his parents were...being them. He probably should have figured the guy would be there.
Johnny had been looking at him how one would look at a slightly diseased looking cat. Like he was considering if he should take Romeo to the vet or pet him. Romeo decided he didn't want to figure out the final desicion there and scurried out.
He'd went back to the Curtis house and gave Darry a shaky apology for not finishing up the dishes. Darry had paused and looked at him for a long moment. "It's alright, Ro. Something came up, didn't it?"
Romeo had decided to take that as a statement and not a question and crashed on the couch again.
The week after, Soda had told him he got a job at the DX. Romeo had to break the news that he knew cars like Soda knew Oscar Wilde. Soda told him he could be a cashier and left before they could really argue on it.
He expected somebody to bring that night up. Whether it be Darry, Soda, Johnny or even Pony. Nobody ever did.
Romeo sleeps in the lot sometimes when he feels a bit too much like a freeloader. He thought it would bring bad memories, but it only brings cold.
He's not suprised when he sees Johnny there. His place first, he supposes.
He is a bit suprised when Johnny talks to him though. Not like a conversation, but Johnny will ask him about things, his thoughts on them. They speak about Elvis and The Beatles and some new movie in the drive-in. Romeo will give short clipped answers to all of them, he feels like he'll slip up somehow if he doesn't.
Johnny wasn't not much of a talker, but he supposes after long enough of hanging around the gang, one becomes a bit uncomfortable with the silence sometimes.
He starts giving Johnny longer answers and asking his own questions back until becomes less like twenty-one questions and more like a discussion. That's when he slips up.
"I used to have this friend out in Montana who was obsessed with Ringo. I never saw it."
He expects to close up after that, it was possibly the biggest piece of information he'd given to anybody in the gang. That he lived in Montana, that he had friends down there.
But Johnny doesn't tell the gang anything. Because he'd know if the gang found out about Montana. He decides then that Johnny Cade is a good guy.
Romeo gets approached by the police and he thinks his life flashes before his eyes. All they do is ask him about Ponyboy and Johnny and the socs.
That's how he finds out about Sheldon.
A bit of his life actually flashes before his eyes. Of Juliet and Missouri and why he's called Romeo in the first place, of why he's in Tulsa in the first place.
He marches over to Buck Merrils place and screams at Dallas Winston as loudly and with as much anger as he can muster to tell him where the boys went.
Because at the end of the day, it takes one to know one. Or...takes one to know two? Whatever.
Dallas doesn't tell him because he's a bitch. This just affirms what he's already decided. He doesn't like that fucker one bit.
Everyone in the Curtis house is out of their minds with worry by the time the boys come back. Romeo is trying to keep calm to balance everyone else's panic. He suspects Darry is trying to do the same.
He's also had to talk two people down from marching down to Texas by the time they get the call from the hospital
He thinks he must of blacked out or something, because he doesn't remember the trip up to the hospital. He just remembers when they saw Pony, covered in soot or ash or whatever it's called. His hair was almost as blonde as Dallas' and cut in a way he knows Pony must hate.
Romeo turns so the brothers can reunite and cry without worrying about him seeing them. He needs a smoke.
When the Curtis' are done. He turns to Ponyboy. "Don't be too worried about the hair. It's not any worse than mine when I first came over here."
Ponyboy laughs at his expense, but it doesn't feel that bad. "Glory, you looked less tuff than a soc, and that's sayin' some things."
"Ay! I didn't look that bad!"
Pony makes a sceptical expression and Romeo isn't very offended because he knows it's true.
He isn't sure whether he should ask, but he goes for it. "Uh, where's Johnny anyway?"
Pony is as subtle as Soda with his worry. "He's got some burns but I don't know much."
Romeo wants to promise him that Johnny'll be okay, but he can't. "Johnny's strong."
It seems to assure Pony a little, but not enough.
Romeo really doesn't want to be at the rumble, but he also doesn't want to chicken out either. So here he stands, ready to get the tar beaten out of him by some soc who will retire to his unnecessarily large house at the end of the day.
Darry's old friend Paul steps up and gives Darry a greeting. Then he follows it up with "I'll take you." Soda and Pony look over at eachother with an expression that Romeo would have started laughing at under different circumstances.
Dallas Winston comes in, and Darry gets hit. So it begins. Pony ends up taking the only guy his size so he just goes for the nearest soc who looks like he won't kill him.
Romeo is ninety percent sure the guy did want to kill him the way he''d started kicking him. And even after the socs started running for it everything ached too much to celebrate the way he wanted.
Then Dallas grabbed Ponyboy, and Pony grabbed Romeo. And they went to see Johnny.
They ran and ran until Romeo felt like his ribs could slide out of his body and got into Dallas' car. He told Ponyboy and him to act sick and they both felt bad enough to pull it off.
It all happened so fast. One of the fuzz ended up giving them a ride while Dallas lectured about being tough, then Dallas threatened some poor doctor with a knife to get to Johnny.
Romeo knew as soon as he looked at Johnny that he was dying just like that doctor had said. But he pushed it to the back of his mind. Johnny's strong, Johnny's strong.
Somewhere after Dallas talking about beating the socs, Romeo managed to get a word in, though he could feel his voice tremble and break. "Johnny, I...don't know what ask."
And Johnny was the only one not suprised to hear his voice, the only one who even knew what that meant. Johnny gave him a smile. And turned to Pony and said something about gold. Romeo had zoned out as soon as he had been done speaking. He's dying, oh god, he's dying.
Romeo looked back at Johnny and he was dead, Dallas was pushing his hair back out of his face. "Never could keep that hair back … that’s what you get for tryin’ to help people, you little punk, that’s what you get…"
Dallas punched a wall, so close to where Romeo was standing that maybe he should've been scared. "Oh, damnit, Johnny, don’t die, please don’t die…" He and Romeo made eye contact for maybe half a second before he bolted out the door.
And just then, Romeo stopped spacing out. He knew exactly what Winston was going to do, because he'd done it himself barely five months ago.
Maybe he should have thought of Pony, but he didn't. He bolted straight out after Dallas faster than he'd ever ran in his life.
He had to stop him. He had to. Because Romeo had stopped when he felt terrible, Dallas wouldn't
They were outside when he caught up to him. "I know what you wanna to do, Dallas. It's not gonna be worth it. Fighting and stealing and making every bad desicion you can think of...it's not gonna do anything."
Dallas turned to him, with anger and maybe some surprise. "You don't get it. I'm gonna accomplish something with this, yknow. You sure as hell can't stop me, Victorian."
"Dally!" Romeo shouted as loud as his voice would go. Dallas was already in the car. That stupid fucking nickname rung in his ears. Shakespeare was Elizabethan.
Dallas and him had never gotten along. He knew why now, they were too different and too similar to ever be friends.
Romeo didn't want go back and face the gang. So he went back to the lot and cried and dreaded. He sobbed and sobbed until he heard the gang and the sirens. So, Dally came here.
Dallas ran in under the street light before he stopped, grabbed a gun from his waistband and raised it. A sudden rush of cold and even more dread ran over Romeo just then. No, no, no. Not now!
He heard gunshots, so many, too many. He got up and tried to run to him, but someone caught him by the back of his coat. Was that Darry? Or Two-Bit?
Without anything to do, he just stared. He might of stared at that body forever had Pony not dropped the ground some way away from him.
The first thought he had was that Pony was dead too. Over shock or something. But they had gotten him to the hospital and he had just had a concussion. He ended up getting checked as well, he and Steve both sporting broken ribs.
He had tried to make himself scarce from the Curtis house, it wasn't his place to be there while Ponyboy was sick. Darry and Soda didn't let him. "And where are you gonna recover, huh? The lot?"
He kept an eye on Ponyboy whenever Darry and Soda couldn't. Sometimes placed a hand on his chest just to make sure he was still breathing. He couldn't lose another person. It would kill him the same way it killed Dally.
He tries to sleep on the couch but Darry says he'll only make the ribs worse like that, so he sleeps on the bed with Pony. One of the days, he woke up to Pony and Soda speaking. "Pony...?"
Soda grinned at him. "Oh, so you're awake too, huh?"
Romeo only lets out a hum because he hasn't been able to feel well-rested since that Saturday.
Pony looks at Romeo and then back at Soda. "You both look beat."
He sees Soda give Pony a grin before flopping down on the bed beside them. Romeo closes his eyes and falls asleep with the knowledge he won't be too scared when he wakes up.
Romeo had thought of packing up and leaving Tulsa everyday since the hearing. It just all became too much. He couldn't even sleep in the lot anymore because he always expected to hear Johnny's voice when he did.
Romeo didn't stop sleeping in the bed with Sodapop and Pony when he got better. They treated it like was his bed as much as theirs now, which never failed to confuse him.
He was still sitting there after one of his shifts at the DX when Ponyboy walked in, a note and a copy of Gone with the Wind in hand. He sat down on the bed beside him.
"Uh, we care about you, y'know? All the gang. Johnny did too. He wanted me to tell you, but I wanted to tell you also."
Where did that come from? Romeo looks at the note and then the book and he understands. He expects to tear up but he doesn't. Instead his voice comes out more unstable than he wants. "Thanks, Ponyboy. I care about you all too. A whole lot. Don't forget that."
Then he pulls Pony into one of those weird side hugs he'd seen Soda do with Darry once. It's the closest he's come to hugging anyone since he came to Tulsa. Pony doesn't say anything and it gives Romeo time to think.
And it all clicks into place then. Why Steve had given him some old clothes that didn't fit him anymore before got job at the DX and could buy clothes of his own. Why Darry and Soda and Pony acted like he lived with them and wasn't just freeloading. Why Johnny wanted to get that message to him before he died.
He was a part of the gang, not just an outsider looking in. They cared about him, each and every one of them.
He decided then he wasn't running away like he did with Juliet back in Montana. He couldn't do that to them, make them lose another person. He'd stay this time.
Him and Pony sit there for a while. They don't speak until Pony sees the clock from the doorway. "Glory, I need to do my homework. Ask Mr. Syme how long that theme can to be."
Romeo takes his arm from around Ponyboy. "Oh, well you better get on that or Darry will chew you out real good. Sorry to keep you."
"Naw, don't worry 'bout it, Ro. I think I needed that anyway." Ponyboy reassured him before leaving.
Romeo layed back on the bed. He wasn't sure how he'd do it, but he'd figure Tulsa out. He had people behind him, he'd be okay.
Two girls run away from their problems. One endures, one withers
ft. Ramona Moore and Juliet Kelly + Darrel Curtis for like two seconds
wc: 1.5k
Warnings: mentions of murder, not in detail but still. Internalised homophobia that lowkey becomes externalised.
They had been sitting there for an hour, maybe two, when quiet sobs starting ringing through the grass. It ticks Ramona off for a fraction of a second. She gets Ramona caught up in a murder she commited and now she's crying?
She knows it unfair to Juli even as she thinks it. That bastard deserved what he got. If Juli didn't do it than Ramona would've in a heartbeat.
It stirs up this new anger inside she doesn't know quite what to do with. So instead she goes over to Juli and starts whispering. "Hey, Jules. Don't cry. It'll be okay. I'll figure something out for us, alright?"
Juliet only sobs louder and more insistent. "No, Mona! Nothing's goin' to be alright! I murdered a boy! I dragged you into all this and you're still out here tryin' to comfort me."
Juliet looks up at her with eyes, red rimmed and glossy. Oh, Ramona hates when she looks like that. All sad. "Glory, Ramona. You're an angel. What could I have done to get blessed with you?"
Nobody had ever referred to Ramona as an angel or a blessing before. She was a brat and a troublemaker. She was troublesome and brash and honest and everything she knew people hated in a girl. "You don't mean that, Jules. Out of the two of us, you're the angel. You're behaved, you're smart, you're beautiful. You're perfect."
Juli laughs, not with any mirth or joy. A dead laugh, a hollow one. "Yet I'm the murderer and you're not. Funny how that spins out, huh? Go to sleep, Ramona. We probably won't get much from here on."
Ramona wants to keep arguing, because when doesn't she? But her throat chokes on her words and her unshed tears. So she turns away and they don't speak until morning.
Ramona wakes up first and she groans. Juliet slept like damn horse, she'd probably have to roll her off a cliff to wake her. She does the only logical thing and shakes her like she's trying to empty a bag or something.
Juliet swats at her like a fly. "Gee, way to wake a girl up easy!"
Ramona wants to laugh, but she can't enough energy for it. She cracks a grin instead. "We gotta get movin'. Probably not wise to stay in all one place."
A bit of tension enters Juli's shoulders. Ramona supposes she's remembering they're fugitives and not deciding to have a sleepover in the grass for kicks.
Ramona wants to think that too, just for a little bit. Maybe in some other universe her and Juli just got distracted and fell asleep in the field. They'd walk their way back home with their tails tucked between their legs. They'd be in a world of trouble too, probably practical house arrest.
It makes Ramona more bitter than it does hopeful, because they are in a world of trouble and they'll have much wore than house arrest if they're caught.
Ramona stands up with a huff. "Besides, I can't spend another night in the grass. If I get back problems at age fifteen because of this I'll never forgive you."
Juliet laughs, a real one this time. She hoists herself up as well and they start to walk together.
They find themselves this abandoned house on the way. It has rats everywhere and she suspects there's a very good reason it's abandoned. Beggars can't really be choosers though. So she makes peace with it.
Her and Jules huddle up to eachother when they sleep, to fight off the cold and because both of them get nasty nightmares if they don't. Ramona gets a food supply for them with her emergency money. She gets them both a small blade. Despite the fact Juliet is to the one with a murder on her back, Ramona thinks she might be more willing to use it then Jules ever will
"Mona, I've been thinkin'." Juliet starts off. Ramona groans dramatically because nobody starts off anything she'll enjoy with that.
Juliet powers on, because after years of them together she's gotten quite used to it. "You know that book we read together last year? About that girl who fakes being a boy to be a soldier in the war?"
It was a good book. Ramona kind of wishes she could read it right now. "Yeah, and she gets this sword and..." Ramona pauses. Glory. "You're not thinkin'...?"
"It would hide our identities, we could pretend to be boys for a while, lay low. And maybe in a couple years, once nobody knows what we look like anymore...we could be girls again or somethin'!" Juliet explains.
And Ramona knows the plan is half-baked and she knows it probably won't work the way they want. But she wants to be able to live normal again. She wants to feel the sun on her face without worry.
So, Ramona picks up her blade. "I'll cut your hair first."
Ramona accidently gives Juliet some mediocre looking bangs. She's ninety-percent sure Juliet cut her hair way shorter than she instructed as revenge, but she can't prove anything.
Ramona doesn't look half bad as a boy, she can live like this. Juliet doesn't look bad either, is what she observes as they sit outside on the grass again.
Juliet always been beautiful. In that natural sort of way that Ramona could never pull off. But as a boy she feels more real, not because she's gotten any less handsome. It just...feels more alright to look at her this way.
Jules looks right back at her. The sun hits her just right and her hair and eyes practically glow. The blonde and the blue complimenting eachother perfectly. This feels like the moment that something big would happen. The boy would kiss the girl and they'd run off into the sunset.
Juliet seems to think so too. She leans in a gives a short kiss which goes just as quickly as it came.
Ramona looks at her in shock. It feels like the world pauses and it's jus them looking at eachother. Then she remembers what's happening, and who they are.
Jules gets up the same time she does, but Ramona senses she ran a bit quicker.
They don't speak for what feels like forever. They just eat and think away from eachother. Ramona is angry. So, so, angry. Sure, she'd thought about kissing Juliet before, but she never would have done it! She wouldn't give Juli that false hope. She sure as hell wouldn't make it as weird and strained as it is right now!
She still wants to talk to Juliet desperately. This might be the longest in years they've gone without speaking and Ramona feels like she's lost a limb.
When Juliet does approach her, she doesn't act like nothing happened like Ramona was secretly hoping she would. "Why aren't we speaking, Mona?"
This might be the first time in her life she's been this angry at Juliet about anything. "Because you made it weird, Jules!"
Juliet looks angry as well, she can feel the fight that's undoubtly about to ensue. "No, you did! We could be speaking right now, Mona! But you don't want to and for why?!"
Ramona can feel herself tearing up. "Because we couldn't be together even if you wanted! It's not right, Jules! You've just—"
Juliet interrupts her. "Killing Michael wasn't right, but it happened and honestly... maybe it should've! Who cares what other people think is right or wrong? Certainly not you! When did you become such a coward, Ramona?"
Ramona sobs and catches it with her fury. "...well, if I'm such a coward then I'll just leave!"
Ramona storms out and Juliet doesn't try to stop her. She just shouts something at Ramona's back and storms the opposite direction.
She's in Oklahoma by the time she reaches a beacon of hope. She's sobbed more than she would care to admit. She shouldn't of left Jules. She was right. Ramona is a coward.
There's a guy in Tulsa who keeps his door open, for his friends. But she thinks she could make deal with him...maybe.
She opens the door and hopes this is the right house because she can't deal with the police right now. A guy walks out, and he looks like he traversed hell thrice and then had to do hard labour for ten hours.
"Uhm...a little birdie tells me you let people sleep on the couch sometimes..?" She tries, she kind of feels bad bothering the guy, but she's probably considered a person in need. So.
"Kid, I really don't—"
"I can help around the house! And I'm really well-behaved, honest! I won't be a bother, really!" She practically begs, because she might just have to accept her fate if this guy bails on her.
The guy lets out a long suffering sigh. "Okay, okay. But if you bother anyone I will kick you out. Who are you, anyway?"
Well, she couldn't exactly say her name was Ramona. People in Tulsa were of the belief she was a boy.
"For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
FRIENDS: DARRY CURTIS, SODAPOP CURTIS, PONYBOY CURTIS, JOHNNY CADE AND JULIET KELLY.
"Romeo Moore had to be the one I knew the least about, and not because I didn't try either. Romeo just didn't give up nothing. Ever. Soda, who Romeo always seemed to prefer spending time around, had only got Romeo's last name a week before and it had been by a total accident.
I knew he wasn't from Tulsa, but I had no idea where he was actually from. He never mentioned family or friends or old schools. It was like he didn't exist before he came here.
I also knew Dally didn't like him one bit. He constantly told Johnny as much, and complained to Darry about it even more. Point is, Romeo was a total mystery to me."
Ponyboy Curtis, 1965
"Ramona was the type of girl you fell inlove with even if you knew you shouldn't. She was like a magnet in that sort of way, but Ramona wanted to repell everyone around her, especially boys. She had always assured me she had a soft spot for me, though."
